How to Record Tool Downtime for Calibration in EDGEBIC

To record tool downtime in EDGEBIC by User Solutions, open the Daily Hours tab, select the Tools inner tab, click the tool in the list, then set From: and To: in the entry row beneath the downtime grid and click Add. The range appears in the grid, and from the next scheduling run every operation that requires the tool skips those days. Both dates are inclusive: the tool is back the day after the end date.

Downtime is the tool's absence, whatever the reason: out for calibration, in the repair shop, or lent to another site. This post covers recording it. What a tool is and why it constrains the plan at all is in the tool constraint.

Before You Start

Step 1: Open the Tool

Open the Daily Hours tab and select the Tools inner tab. Click the tool in the left-hand list. Its editor loads on the right, and its existing downtime ranges appear in the grid below.

Each row in that grid has three columns: Start (inclusive), End (inclusive), and Reason, with a Remove button at the end of the row.

Step 2: Set the Dates

In the entry row beneath the grid, set From: and To:.

Both are inclusive. A calibration running from the 20th through the 24th is entered as From 20th, To 24th, and the tool is usable again on the 25th. Setting the two to the same date blocks exactly one day.

Step 3: Add a Reason

Type a Reason: in the box, which shows the placeholder text Reason (optional) until you do. It is optional, and it is worth typing anyway. Six weeks later, Annual calibration and Loaned to Plant 2 mean very different things when you are deciding whether the range can be moved.

Step 4: Add the Range

Click ➕ Add. The range appears in the grid. Repeat for each separate absence.

To remove a range later, click Remove on its row.

What Changes When You Add Downtime

The most important line there is the third one. Recording downtime changes master data and nothing else until you run a reschedule. Enter calibration windows the moment they are booked, then reschedule, so the plan reflects them while there is still time to react.

How to Check It Worked

The range shows in the grid with the dates you expected in the Start (inclusive) and End (inclusive) columns. Then reschedule and look at a job whose routing requires the tool: its operation should sit outside the range entirely, starting on the first working day after the end date.

If you want to confirm the reason for a move, the run's diagnostic log records every window that was skipped for an empty pool, tagged as tooling lines, naming the tool and the date.

Common Mistakes

• Setting the end date one day too far out. The end is inclusive, so entering the day the tool comes back blocks that day too and work resumes a day later than you expected. Enter the last day it is genuinely absent.
• Using downtime when only one of several units is away. Downtime zeroes the pool for every unit. Drop the quantity instead, or model each unit as its own tool if they leave independently.
• Stacking overlapping ranges. Ranges may not overlap. The status line names the clashing range; widen or merge the existing one rather than adding a second.
• Adding downtime to an unsaved tool. Save the tool first, then record downtime.
• Expecting the schedule to move on its own. Nothing changes until the next run.
• Recording a calibration you never reschedule against. The entry protects nothing until a run consumes it.

Next Steps

If the tool is going away entirely rather than temporarily, see how to retire a tool without breaking routings. To make more operations respect the tool in the first place, see how to require a tool on a routing step. Machine absences work differently and are covered in how to schedule a downtime event for a machine.

Every task in this library is indexed on the EDGEBIC how-to hub. To watch a calibration window push work to the far side of it, book a walkthrough of EDGEBIC.