During most production processes flaws are inevitable, resulting in some produced parts not to be at a high enough quality to be sent to the client. These will be considered what is called Wastes in the Fusion Operations system. In this article we will look at how to define and record these Wastes, to help you identify processes which are generating irregular levels of waste and correct these to boost your overall efficiency.
How to create wastes
1. To record Wastes you must have Waste Codes defined. To create these go to Quality. Under Quality, Wastes will be the default displayed entity.
2. Click add Waste.
3. Adding a waste requires code and description. Below, under the Advanced Fields you can also define a Flaw which the product might have to cause it to come under this waste code.
You can also assign a Waste Category, which can be used to group several waste codes into a type, for example Human Error or Machine Malfunction. Waste Categories must be created first by selecting Quality, then Waste Category from the side menu.
Below these fields you can find several checkboxes:
Recoverable: means that under this waste code the product could still be reworked into an acceptable finished product. It will not count towards production completion numbers or increase the total quantity still to produce in the operations previous to where the waste was recorded.
Billable: the waste can still be sold, for example as a “B” or lower quality product.
Out of Flow: wastes will count for production completion numbers, but will not generate a finished product. If you activate this you will see that Generate Inventory is then selectable.
Generate Inventory: when active, Out of Flow wastes will generate a finished product in the inventory. With Generate Inventory active the Can send to client checkbox will become active.
Can send to client: allows the waste product to be sent to clients in Sales Orders.
4. Once complete select Save Waste at the bottom of the page.
How to associate waste codes to an operation
To be able to then input the Wastes when producing you will need to add these to the operations in which they can potentially be generated. To do this follow the steps below.
1. Go to the Operations screen and select the operation that you want to associate to the waste with.
2. Add your waste code into the Waste field. You can also do this when creating any new operation.
3. Click save operation, on the bottom of the screen.
How to associate waste codes to several operations
To save time you can also add a waste code to several operations at once. See below how to get this done.
1. Go to the Operations list and use the Table Filters to show the relevant operations which you want to associate the waste codes with.
2. Select one of these from the list. You'll see it highlight, and then selecting the Wastes button above.
3. You will then be able to select which of your waste codes to associate.
Waste collection & analysis
With your waste codes correctly assigned, when a worker uses the mobile app to check out of production for an operation with an associated waste code, they will be prompted to log a waste type and the quantity of these, if applicable.
When Wastes have been logged this data can then be viewed back in the management interface from the Quality Analytics page, accessed from within Quality on the side menu.
In here you can view a graph and indicator on the amount of waste that has occurred, which can be displayed over a specified date range and filtered by various options, such as by Production Order or Worker. You can also see on the right side of the screen the wastes table broken down into the number for each waste code, and the corresponding percentage of the total wastes.
Below, an indicator will display the percentage of defects out of the total products produced.
You can use the Show All icon to switch between the top 5 and a complete wastes list. You are also able to export this information in an Excel or PDF format.