Just in time before Easter we can provide you with new versions of our visual scheduling extensions for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Together with the versions 1.14 of the Visual Production Scheduler and the Visual Jobs Scheduler (watch out for the respective blog which is to come within the next few days), we have released version 1.9 of the Visual Advanced Production Scheduler which has already been approved by Microsoft and can be downloaded from AppSource as of now.
For detailed information, please read the release notes.
We have reworked the EMAD calculation process to considerably improve the performance.
The EMAD allocation page was enhanced to offer more information:
new fields "Item Description" and "Supply Type"
Additional information on the demand list
In this context, we added the field "Log Entries" to the demand overview page. You can click on the number and get additional information on the EMAD allocation. This is especially useful if the EMAD allocation failed or was removed. It allows you to identify the missing components more quickly.
To make sure that the EMAD gets considered when scheduling, the VAPS "Setup" dialog offered two switches so far, one regarding "Add all" and the other one regarding "Fill idle times". With the new release, we have streamlined the dialog and have combined the two switches into one, this working for all affected automatic scheduling functions (Add All, Fill Idle Times, Apply Routing, Tighten Operations):
In some cases, the calculation of the EMAD took quite long and users told us that during the process they often were wondering whether everything was running smoothly. This made us think about a way of keeping them informed during the calculation and came up with a new info window that provides feedback on and during the calculation of the EMAD values.
With the new function "Tighten queues" the user can minimize gaps between operations on a resource by shifting all operations to the scheduling start position as far as possible. The function differs from "Fill idle times" in that it does not change the order of the operations. Please note that operations before the scheduling start will not be affected.
The picture below shows an example with operations before they were tightened:
And this is how it looks after tightening the operations:
You can activate this feature
for a single resource via context menu
In the past, we only allowed selecting machine centers and subcontractor work centers as resources for alternate routings. We have removed this restriction so that it is possible now to select any work or machine center for alternate routings.
With the December 2021 release of the VAPS, we introduced the option of showing overlapping operations either overlapped in one row or stacked. With the new release, we make this possible also for resources being on standby. You can select the desired option via context menu, the default being "Show operations stacked".
The color schemes have been thoroughly reworked to improve the performance.
That's it for today, I hope you'll enjoy the new functions and enhancements. As always, the complete information can be found in the release notes. And don't forget to browse our knowledge base for more detailed information.
And what's more - have a nice Easter holiday!