How to Log Actual Production Hours and Pieces in EDGEBIC

To log actual production hours in EDGEBIC by User Solutions, you set the operation's actual start, then type the real hours into a daily grid with one row per calendar day, then save. The scheduled dates are never overwritten. Actual values sit beside the plan, and the comparison stays visible on every screen afterward. This post walks the whole sequence, including the two prompts that stop people the first time and the right way to close an operation out.

If you have not met the underlying data model yet, shop floor actuals tracking covers what is being captured and why. Here we are doing it.

Before You Start

Three things need to be true.

Step 1: Set the Actual Start

An operation with no actual start has to be opened before hours can go on it.

1. Open the Job View tab and select the job.
2. Right-click the operation's bar on the Schedule View Gantt and choose Log Actuals. From the Job View tab you can instead click the Log Actual header button and pick the work center. In the Actual Live view, double-click the step's card.
3. The Edit Actual Dates dialog opens first. Set Actual Start using Start = Now for the current moment, or Use Sched Start to copy the planned start. Click Save.

An actual start is written once. If an operator later punches in at a shop floor terminal, that punch will not overwrite the start you just recorded.

Step 2: Answer the Prior Work Centers Prompt

If earlier operations on the same job have no actuals, a warning appears listing them. This is the moment that decides how honest the job's history will be.

• Cancel stops so you can log the earlier operations properly. This is the right choice when you can still find out what happened.
• OK accepts a backfill: those earlier steps get actual start equal to planned start, actual end equal to planned end, and actual hours equal to planned hours per day, all tagged as system filled.

Backfilled days wear a visible Auto-filled pill in the grid's Source column. That is not a scolding, it is a to-do list. Revisit those days when you learn the real numbers, and the badge clears as soon as you type over the value.

A second variant of the same prompt appears when earlier days of the operation you are on are still empty. Same logic: cancel and fill them, or accept and mark them for review.

Step 3: Fill the Daily Grid

With the start set, the Log Actuals dialog opens. One row per calendar day of the operation's window.

Leave Auto Calc Hours (derive missing side from Rate) ticked and enter one side only. On a step rated at two pieces per hour, typing 6 into Actual Hrs fills 12 into Actual Pcs. Typing the pieces works the same way in reverse.

Click Save. Two things can interrupt the save, both deliberately:

• If you changed values that had already been reported, EDGEBIC asks for a reason. An empty reason cancels the save. Write something a colleague could use six months from now: "operator tapped complete one hour early, corrected from time study sheet" beats "fix".
• The prior work centers or prior days prompt can appear here too.

For a single-cell correction you do not need the full dialog. Double-click the Actual Hours or Actual Pieces cell of an operation row in the Job View grid and the Quick Log popup opens with date, hours, pieces, auto-calc, and save. It also offers Log more actual if the correction turns out to be bigger than you thought.

Step 4: Close the Operation

Logging hours does not close an operation. Completion is a separate statement.

1. Double-click the row's Actual End cell in the Job View grid, or take the right-click route to Edit Actual Dates.
2. Use End = Now or Use Sched End, then save.
3. An end that is not strictly after the start is refused. An inverted pair is always a data-entry error, usually a date picker sitting on the wrong year.

If you record completion without an explicit time, the end snaps to 23:59 of the last day that has logged hours. That is why an operation started at 08:00 and completed the same day never appears to finish before it began.

An operation also counts as done, on the Job View, the Gantt shade, and the Actual Live cards, when its logged hours have fully covered the planned hours even without a stamped end. Both roads lead to complete. The difference is that a stamped end is a decision you made and a covered-hours completion is an inference from the numbers.

To undo a completion, clear the actual end. The operation returns to in progress.

Step 5: Complete or Reopen the Whole Job

1. On the Job View tab, click Complete this Job.
2. The Mark Complete dialog asks for a completion date and an optional reason. Click OK.
3. The header shows the completion banner, the Log Actual and Complete this Job buttons lock, and the job's bars take the completed shade on the Gantt.
4. Reopen Job reverses all of that.

The job-level roll-up only reports 100 percent when every operational step is done. Finishing one step early never flags the whole job complete, which is what keeps the Job Progress report honest.

Watching a Job While It Runs

The Actual Live view is the third mode of the Scheduled Job BOR tab, beside Data Grid and Designer. It draws the job's routing diagram with a live progress card on every step: a status badge reading Queued, Running, or Complete, logged hours against planned hours, a progress bar, and the actual time window. The header strip summarizes job progress, actual against estimate, current step, projected finish, and due date.

Two things to know about it. It reads the database fresh on every load, so whatever a terminal or another planner logged seconds ago is already on screen. And it is read only for layout: you can pan, zoom, and drag cards for a better look, but nothing you drag is saved. Double-click a work center card and you get the same gated logging flow as the Job View.

What Saving Changes

That last row is why any of this matters. Reading the result on the Gantt is covered in planned versus actual on the EDGEBIC Gantt.

A Worked Sequence

Widget-A times 20 on JOB-2026-0125. CNC-Mill-1 is planned for 11 hours: 1 hour of setup plus 10 run hours at 2 pieces per hour.

1. Monday 10:00 the mill starts. Right-click the bar, Log Actuals, Edit Actual Dates opens, Start = Now, Save. Saw-1 was never logged, so the prior work centers prompt lists it. You click OK and Saw-1's day takes planned values with the auto-filled badge.
2. The grid opens. Monday row: type 6 into Actual Hrs. Auto-calc fills 12 pieces. Save.
3. Tuesday you finish: Actual Hrs = 5, which derives 10 pieces. Save. Logged hours now total 11 against a planned 11, so the step already reads Complete in Actual Live.
4. You stamp the end anyway: double-click Actual End, End = Now, Save. Once Assembly-1 is done too, the end product rolls to 100 percent and Complete this Job closes it out.

Six Habits That Keep the Data Usable

• Log daily, not weekly. Rescheduling plans forward from your last logged position. Five minutes at shift end keeps every downstream promise honest.
• Prefer Cancel on the backfill prompt. Auto-filled days assume the plan happened exactly as written. Fine as a stopgap, wrong if the earlier step ran long.
• Correct the primary, never the parallel sibling. Sibling edits are overwritten by design on the next save.
• Give real reasons on edits. The reason lands in the append-only history and is the only context the next person gets.
• Pick one side and let the rate derive the other. Hand-typing both sides for the same day invites mismatches with the rate.
• Stamp completion deliberately. Reports and reschedules treat completed work as immovable fact, so say it on purpose.

Where to Go Next

How actuals flow into the schedule traces one entry from tap to re-planned date and explains the resume point. Actuals logging mistakes covers what goes wrong and how each symptom traces back to a cause. How EDGEBIC preserves completed work on reschedule is the guarantee that makes daily logging safe.

The operator-side workflow lives in the shop floor execution guide, and the platform overview is the complete guide to EDGEBIC. Bring one live job and a shift of real numbers to a demo of EDGEBIC and we will log them together.