Mass modification feature is mainly used to update massively some work orders (WOs) and/or operations (for more details, please refer to this post).
Feature explained from an example:
Here is an illustration of another usage of Mass modification: fast checking if among the operations loading an overloaded resource (primary or secondary) during a specific time bucket, some of them have specific leveling properties, themselves or their WOs.
After a load-leveling optimization, an overload is detected on a resource on Tuesday, November 3rd (leveling time bucket is set to “1 day”):
After checking that this resource belongs to a grouping on which leveling box is checked, that this day belongs to the leveling horizon and that the other leveling settings are OK, I need to analyze the operations planned on this resource on that day.
1st step: click on the cell where the load/capacity rate is 135 %, to list the operations:
Highlight the operations contributing to the load
Click on “Select all” and “Filter WOs”.
Split the screen to keep Capacity Requirement Planning on top and WO Gantt chart below:
On this example, only 9 operations are concerned and need to be analyzed. But on a production environment, we are more likely to have many operations to check.
Now let’s enter is Mass modification mode:
For that, after activating WO Gantt chart, click on “Mode” tab, click on “Multiple selection” to highlight the button in blue, and select “Select filtered op.” in the combo box:
All the operations of the selected WOs have an orange rectangle to highlight they are selected.
Now, over the WO Gantt chart, Right click > Modify.
From “WOs” tab, in the bottom right corner, we can observe 2 sets of indication:
- “Load leveling engine settings:” no box is checked, nothing interesting for our analysis.
- Constraint on move: “Specialized constraints” has a black square to inform that among the selected WOs at least one has a specific constraint => this is the next action to perform: identifying those WOs. It is not possible to filter WOs on this specific constraint (at least not possible when I was writing this post) except by checking one after one (or querying the environment DB on E_OF table, records where LBE_SPECIF=1 and LBE_STATUT=1). Visually, it is possible to detect the operations if “WO start” information is displayed (from “WOs” tab). In that situation, operations that can’t move have a velvet triangle (but hidden if a non-automatic fix start date was set on the operation):
Let’s open this WO: it cannot move, meaning that none of its operations can be moved by the load leveling optimization engine.
From “Operations” tab, in the bottom right corner, we can observe 2 sets of indication:
- “Load leveling engine settings:” no box is checked, nothing interesting for our analysis.
- Constraint on move: “Specialized constraints” has a black square to inform that among the selected Operations at least one has a specific constraint => this is the next action to perform: identifying those operations. It is not possible to filter operations on this specific constraint (at least not possible when I was writing this post) except by checking one after one (or querying the environment DB on B_BT table, records where LBE_SPECIF=1 and LBE_STATUT=1). Visually, it is possible to detect the operations if “WO start” information is displayed (from “WOs” tab). In that situation, operations that can’t move have a velvet triangle (but hidden if a non-automatic fix start date was set on the operation):
Let’s open this operation: it cannot move, meaning that it cannot be moved by the load leveling optimization engine:
Warning: please note than in “Operations” tab are present all the operations of each WO having at least one operation contributing to the load of the resource during the analyzed time bucket, not only the operations contributing to the load. That means we may see a black square in the check box while none of the operations contributing to the load is concerned.
Conclusion:
These steps are useful to know if it is valuable to spend time (or not) to identify potential WO/operation that have specialized leveling settings.
This was only an example of how useful Mass modification can be. Of course it may be used for other settings, in PS environments, etc.
