AX2012 – Kanban Scheduling – things you should know, or are these “features” for real?
Posted Friday, January 13th, 2012
So, there I was setting up my Sales Event Kanban in a training environment, enjoying life and learning something new! Everything was going swimmingly well until I decided to go check the results of my set up in the Kanban Scheduling Board, or for the real Lean aficionados – the Heijunka Board (Why did Microsoft change the name?).
No sign of my Kanban – oops! Then I noticed that I did not see the correct period, silly me! So I clicked on the advance arrow, and it moved forward by one day; not what I expected! Ok, let’s look at changing the period settings, because I don’t’ want to move from January 2011, to January 2012, one click at a time do I? How do you change the period?
The quest for knowledge started with a search through Lean Manufacturing, progressed through Production Control, to General Ledger via Production & Organization plus System Management to no avail!
No parameter located anywhere! You have got to be kidding Microsoft! I, as a User can’t be forced to do this every time I want to change a date…one click at a time – ouch!
But it’s true, unless anyone out there managed to find it, this looks like an oversight. We should be able to specify a date range, or period to move to, so beware fellow Lean people!
Another thing to watch out for is if you have incompletely processed Kanbans prior to “today’s date” for example, when you open the Schedule Board, AX will display the period which contains those Kanbans, and not default to today’s date. This means that you should actively clean up the Schedule, which a good Production Scheduler would do anyway, if you want to see “today’s period” when you access the Schedule Board. Makes sense? A quick look into the code didn’t help either;what’s driving it? More investigation needed!
Oh, and have you seen the “Status” display bar at the top right of the Schedule? Currently it doesn’t seem very meaningful, so I think that there is room for improvement there!
Last beef……. As a User I’m not impressed with having to change tabs in order to select another Resource (Work Cell). This ought to have been set up as an option on the Plan Tab, so I think I see a simple change coming our way. Life is difficult enough for a Production Scheduler, even a Lean one, without adding extra burdens!
In the course of my travels around the features of the Scheduling Board, I did discover a previously overlooked feature that is pretty cool! We can actually change the status on a Kanban in the Schedule by using the “Revert Job Status” function, then you can move or even delete the Kanbans. And I love to drag and drop when I schedule/reschedule; It’s so much easier!
Don’t get me wrong, overall, the Schedule Board is pretty cool and it will compliment a manual Heijunka Scheduling Board rather than replace it. I’m certainly looking forward to working with it….bring it on!
Posted in Dynamics AX, Lean, Production, Uncategorized
Mike Gooding
Mike joined IBIS Inc., in October 2009 as Senior Manufacturing Consultant, working with Ax2009. He has since worked actively on several AX2009 implementations. His most recent being as lead manufacturing consultant/PM for a US based multi national distributor of ice machines.He has many years’ experience of working with AX, commencing with V3.0 and specializing in Lean Manufacturing for AX, developed as a separate module with Ax by his previous employers (eBECS). Mike subsequently worked closely with the Microsoft Lean Center of Excellence when Microsoft incorporated Lean Manufacturing into standard AX in 2009. Previously Mike has over 25 years’ experience of multi- national manufacturing in the Stainless Steel industry, culminating in his appointment as Project Manager Applications & Integration, where he managed various system and business development projects. In addition to his manufacturing and consulting experience, Mike has an interest in all things military, having spent 13 years in the UK Territorial Army, where he was a qualified Radio Telegraphist and Staff Quartermaster Sergeant. Mike lives in the USA, with his wife and both take an active interest in their local community and take part in many of their church activities. They have three adult children and four grandchildren, who all live in the United Kingdom. .
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Thanks for sharing your findings, I really felt AX2012 there are some areas needs to be improve like Master Planning, Production module as you mentioned above and Capacity Planning.