How to Delete a Shift in EDGEBIC (and When Not To)

To delete a shift in EDGEBIC by User Solutions, open the shift management page, click the remove control on the shift's row, and confirm. The definition and its daily hours are gone permanently. Before you do it, understand that this removes those hours from every work center that worked the shift, and that deactivating gives you the same effect on the plan while keeping the definition.

Shifts are the foundation of capacity. A shift is not a label, it is the set of working windows the scheduler is allowed to place work into, so removing one changes what the plant can do on every future day it would have covered.

Before You Start

• Ask whether deactivation is enough. In most cases it is, and it is reversible in one tick. How to deactivate a shift in EDGEBIC covers it.
• Know which work centers use it. The hours disappear from all of them.
• Know what the plant relied on. A weekend or overtime shift is often propping up more of the schedule than anyone realizes.
• Expect a busier weekday plan afterward. That is the point, and it is the honest picture.

Step 1: Find Out Who Uses the Shift

Before touching the shift itself, work out its reach.

Open the Workcenter tab and read the Shift Calendar column. Machines showing the green Global badge inherit the plant-wide shift definitions, so all of them work this shift if it is a global one. Machines showing the amber Custom badge follow only their own list, so open each one's associated shifts to see whether the shift you are removing is in it.

Write the list down. It is what you will check afterward.

Step 2: Decide Between Deleting and Deactivating

Use this rule:

• The pattern might return. Deactivate. The definition, its daily hours, and the ability to reinstate it survive.
• The shift was created by mistake and never used. Delete. Nothing is lost.
• The pattern is genuinely retired forever. Either works. Deactivating still costs nothing to keep.

The argument for deactivation is not sentiment, it is the daily hours. A shift definition carries start and end times per day of the week, and retyping that pattern accurately six months from now is a job nobody wants.

Step 3: Delete the Shift

On the Shift Management page, click the trash icon (tooltip Remove) on the shift's row and confirm.

The shift is gone from the list and from the pickers used when assigning shifts to work centers.

Step 4: Clean Up the Work Centers That Used It

This is the step that separates a clean removal from a configuration that lies.

For each machine on your list from step 1, open it and check its Associated Shifts tab. Remove any leftover reference to the retired shift so the machine's calendar reflects what it actually works, then confirm at least one shift remains.

A machine left with an empty shift list has zero capacity. It never receives a job, and the row looks perfectly normal on screen, which is why this check matters more than it sounds.

Step 5: Reschedule and Read the Damage Honestly

Run the scheduler and look at what moved.

Jobs that were quietly using the removed hours have to find room elsewhere, so due dates can slip. That is the schedule telling you the truth about what the shift was carrying. The useful follow-up is to see where the loss concentrated: if one work center absorbed most of the impact, that machine is your real constraint and the overtime was hiding it.

How to Check It Worked

1. The shift is gone from the list and from the shift pickers on the work center editor.
2. No work center has an empty calendar. Check every machine that used the shift, especially the custom-calendar ones.
3. Capacity dropped where it should. Open a work center's capacity view for a day the shift covered and confirm the hours reflect the removal.
4. The schedule reflows. After a run, work that used those hours has moved rather than vanished.

Common Mistakes

Deleting instead of deactivating. The most common regret, and the daily hours are the reason.

Skipping the work center cleanup. Assignment records stay behind, so machines keep referencing a pattern that no longer contributes anything.

Forgetting the custom-calendar machines. Machines on the plant calendar degrade gracefully. Machines with their own list can end up with nothing at all. How to find work centers with no shifts in EDGEBIC is the audit for exactly this.

Deleting a shift to close a holiday week. Use a holiday for a temporary closure. Deletion removes the pattern from every future day, not just the week you were thinking of.

Assuming the schedule is broken afterward. Later dates after a capacity removal are arithmetic, not a fault.

Next Steps

If the hours are wrong rather than the shift, edit the daily hours instead, remembering that a change to a global shift changes the calendar for every machine that inherits it. For the wider calendar picture including holidays and downtime, read how to set up shifts, holidays, and downtime in EDGEBIC. More task guides sit on the EDGEBIC how-to hub, and the EDGEBIC product page shows how calendars drive finite capacity.