Placing and re-planning

You decide which machine each step runs on and in what order. The Schedule works out every start and finish from that order, so nobody types a start time and two steps can never overlap on one machine. Placing puts new jobs on the board; everything else is a small change that the times follow at once.

How the times are worked out#

A step starts at the latest of these:

• its machine is free: the step before it on that machine has finished and this step's makeready is done;
• the job's previous step has finished, plus any wait after it (such as drying);
• its ready checks have passed;
• its machine is working: hours and downtime.

After every change (a placement, a move, a new downtime, a step started or finished on the floor) the times are worked out again, keeping each machine's order. Every few minutes the Schedule also catches up with the clock: a step that should have started but hasn't moves to now, and a step running longer than planned pushes the ones after it.

Place a job#

Place on a tray card puts that job's steps on the board. Only the new steps are placed: nothing already planned moves. A new step can use a free gap on a machine only if the step after the gap still starts on time.

Place all ready#

Place all ready (key A, or Auto-schedule in the toolbar) places every ready job in the tray at once, after a preview you can apply or discard.

The preview sums up the change:

Place 8 jobs · 5 steps move · Late 3 → 1 · At risk 5 → 3 · Makeready −40 min · Nothing started, pinned or in the next 2 h moves.

The new bars appear hatched on the board, and the list under the card shows every step that moves, with its job. Placing never makes planned work later when it can help it; when it can't, the card warns before you apply, for example "2 planned steps end later". Apply (Enter) makes the change; Discard (Esc) forgets it. If someone changed the plan while you were looking, the card offers Preview again.

Placing puts the most urgent work first: the job due soonest, weighted by its priority from the imposition job's Order card. Lateness of a Rush job counts 8 times as much as a Low one (High 4, Normal 2). Jobs without a due date can't be late: they fill in around the work that has one. Each step goes on the machine that can finish it first, preferring the one it was imposed for, and makeready counts: a step that follows similar work on a machine needs less of it there.

To place new jobs by themselves as soon as they are ready, see Schedule settings.

Move a step to another machine#

In the job panel's Route tab, choose another machine for a step (key M). The list shows, for every machine that can take it, when the step would finish there, how that compares with now, whether the job is still on time (or how late it would be, in clock and working time, as the job panel says it: "2h late (1.5 working h)") and how the makeready changes. Machines that can't take it are greyed out with the reason, for example "Sheet 720×1020 mm is larger than this press (520×740 mm)"; for a press that is too small, Re-impose for Press 2 opens the job in Imposition.

The step takes the new machine's time, and both machines are re-timed. A step marked Only this machine (a lock in the job panel) stays on its machine: choose another machine for the job in Imposition instead.

Hold a job#

Hold (key H) parks a job: its steps that haven't started leave the board, and the job waits in the tray's On hold section with its reason. Steps already started stay where they are. Release puts the job back in the tray, ready to place again.

Pin a step#

A pin keeps a step on its machine and not before a time you choose, for example a job the customer will attend. Select the step on the board and press P to pin it at its planned start, and P again to unpin it; on a phone, use Pin in the job's details. Placing never moves a pinned step. If earlier work runs over and the pinned time can no longer be kept, the step slips later and shows a conflict chip; the pin stays until you remove it.

The time fence: work that never moves#

• Started steps (running, makeready, paused or with a problem) stay on their machine at their real times.
• The time fence: steps planned to start in the next 2 hours (see Schedule settings), and the next two steps on each station's Up next list, keep their machine and their place in the queue. Placing never reorders them, so an operator's next job doesn't change under them. They can still start later if the work before them runs over.
• Pinned steps keep their machine and their earliest time.

When a planner does change a station's next steps, the station shows a notice saying so.

Idle gaps#

When a step has to wait (its proof isn't approved yet, or the step before it is on another machine) its machine would stand idle. A later ready step that fits entirely in that gap runs first, marked with a link. The waiting step never starts later because of it, and once it is ready it goes first again: your order wins. Switch this off with Schedule settings.

Conflicts#

A conflict is shown, never refused: a pin that slipped, a step started before the step before it finished, two steps reported running on one machine, or a step that doesn't fit in the next 60 days. Conflicting bars have a red outline, and the status bar counts them ("2 conflicts"). Finished steps don't count.

Undo and redo#

Undo and Redo in the toolbar (⌘ Z and ⇧ ⌘ Z) take back a placement, a move, a pin or a hold as one change, and the message after Apply has its own Undo. A step that changed or started since is kept as it is, and the message says how many changes were kept.