1.1 Definition of work center
A work center is a production resource used to produce a product, including machines, people and equipment . It is a general term for various production or capacity processing units. The work center belongs to the category of capabilities, that is, the category of planning, and does not belong to the category of fixed assets or equipment management. A work center can be a piece of equipment, a group of equipment with the same function, an automatic production line, a team, an assembly area, or some kind of closed workshop that produces a single product. For outsourcing processes, the corresponding work center is the representative of a collaborative unit .
Work centers can also reflect the concept of cost categories. In the process route report of a workpiece, each process generally corresponds to a work center , but in some cases, several consecutive processes can also correspond to the same work center (this situation often occurs in assembly work centers ). There are expenses and costs incurred when the process passes through each work center. This is calculated from the cost data for the work center and the corresponding work quotas in the routing.
1.2 The role of work center
1.2.1 As the basic unit for balancing task load and production capacity. When running Capacity Requirements Planning (CRP), the work center is used as the calculation unit. When analyzing CRP implementation, input/output analysis is also conducted based on the work center as a unit.
1.2.2 As the basic unit for allocating tasks and arranging detailed schedules for workshop operations. Work dispatch orders indicate the priority of tasks for each work center.
1.2.3 As the basic unit for calculating processing costs. The calculation of part processing cost is based on the unit time rate (yuan/working hour or station hour) in the work center data record multiplied by the time quota occupied by the process route data record in the work center.
1.3 Some reference rules defined by the work center
Defining a work center is a detailed and basic work. The key to defining a work center is to ensure that the planning allocation of the work center is consistent with the degree of control and planning capabilities required to manage the enterprise.
Therefore, the principle of division should enable the work center to play the above three roles.
Some work centers that may form bottleneck processes must be marked separately.
For situations where there may be multiple processes working simultaneously at a fixed work location, such as welding assembly, the division of work centers should be carefully studied.
If machine tools of the same model are of different newness and affect work efficiency, they should be distinguished and should not be divided into one work center.
For outsourcing processes in the process route, as mentioned above, the corresponding outsourcing unit must be handled as a work center and corresponding records must be established. Using group technology, several machine tools form a group unit , which is beneficial to simplifying the division of work centers.