How to Add an Alternate Work Center to a Step in EDGEBIC

To add an alternate work center to a step in EDGEBIC by User Solutions you open the step's True Alternatives tab, add the fallback machine, and enter its own setup and hours. The scheduler then treats that machine as a substitute it may pick instead of the primary, which is how a routing dodges a bottleneck without you rerouting jobs by hand.

An alternate replaces the primary. A parallel machine runs alongside it. Getting that distinction right is the whole game, and it is covered from the concept side in parallel and alternate work centers explained. This post is the setup task for the alternate.

Before You Start

• The alternate machine exists as a work center, and it has shifts assigned. A machine with no shift returns no capacity and the scheduler simply skips it.
• You have the alternate's own numbers. An older, slower mill has larger setup and per-unit hours, and you enter its figures, not the primary's.
• You know when substitution is appropriate. Alternates suit a specific operation with a specific fallback. For "any of these machines, plant-wide," a Work Center Group is the better model.

Adding the Alternate

1. Open the BOR tab, select the routing in Data Grid mode, and select the step. Expand the step detail panel.
2. In the Parallel Processing section, open the True Alternatives tab.
3. Click + Add True Alternative. In the Select Work Center popup, pick the fallback machine and click OK.
4. In the alternative's row, enter the machine's own numbers: Setup Time and Hours Req'd as they apply on that machine. The scheduler uses these directly and does not scale the primary's hours to fit.
5. Click Accept in the detail panel, then Update Standard BOR.

In the grid, the alternate appears as a child row under the step, marked with ⟳ and the tooltip True Alternative Work Center. In Designer mode the same thing is a node joined with a True Alternative connector (right-click a connector, Connector Type, True Alternative), and selecting it shows a True Alternative Work Center banner in Properties.

Choosing How the Scheduler Picks

When you run a schedule that touches a step with true alternatives, the Alternative Work Center Selection dialog appears: "One or more BOR steps have True Alternative work centers." You have two top-level choices, and three strategies under the automatic one.

Which strategy fits depends on why you added the alternate. Earliest Completion suits a shop where hitting dates is everything and you do not care which mill runs the job, because it always takes the fastest finish. Primary First suits a shop with a preferred machine, perhaps the one with the best fixturing, that falls back only under real pressure. Earliest Start suits work where getting parts moving matters more than the exact finish, for instance to free a queue or start a downstream crew. You can also drop to Manual and set the machine per step yourself when the call is judgment rather than arithmetic.

What Changes When You Save

Worked through: the primary mill is booked for three days, and a 20% slower second mill is free tomorrow. Waiting for the primary starts the operation Thursday at 51.0 hours. Under Earliest Completion, the alternate starts Wednesday at 1.0 setup plus 0.60 times 100, which is 61.0 hours, and finishes about a day and a half earlier despite being slower. Availability beat raw speed, which is exactly the trade the alternate exists to make.

How to Check It Worked

In the grid, the alternate should show as a ⟳ child row under its step with its own setup and hours. If those cells are empty, the scheduler has nothing to plan the alternate with.

Run a test schedule and watch for the Alternative Work Center Selection dialog. It appearing at all confirms the alternate registered. Choose Auto with Earliest Completion, then read the Job View Gantt: the operation should sit on whichever machine the strategy chose, as a single bar rather than two.

If the alternate should have been used but was not, the usual causes are the Primary First strategy while the primary still had same-day room, or a step with actuals that is locked to its machine.

Common Mistakes

Entering the primary's hours on the alternate. The alternate uses its own Setup Time and Hours Req'd. A slower machine with the fast machine's numbers plans as if it were fast, and the plan lies.

Setting a factor and expecting it to matter. A true alternative is driven by its own hours, not by a parallel factor. Factors apply to parallel machines, which are a different mechanism: see how to make two operations run in parallel.

Adding an alternate with no shift. A machine with no shift assigned returns no capacity and is silently skipped. Confirm the alternate has a working calendar first.

Confusing alternates with pools. Hand-configuring the same alternate on every step across a shop is the wrong tool for "any mill will do." A Work Center Group models a pool once, and per-step alternates are for a specific fallback on a specific operation.

Expecting a mid-run job to move. Steps with actuals are locked to their machine. The alternate is a candidate only for work that has not started.

Next Steps

If you actually want two machines on the operation at once rather than a choice between them, how to make two operations run in parallel is the task. For the broader configuration, see how to configure parallel and alternate work centers. The full task library is at the EDGEBIC how-to hub, and the platform overview is at EDGEBIC.