How to Require a Skill on a Routing Step in EDGEBIC

To require a skill on a routing step in EDGEBIC by User Solutions, set the step's Required Skill and choose the operator attention model. The control lives on the routing (Bill of Routing) step, in the details panel or the graphical designer, and it only becomes useful once you have created the skill and certified operators who hold it. With a required skill set, EDGEBIC treats the qualified operator as a second finite resource: the step schedules only in a window where a certified, rostered operator has free hours. A plant with one Inconel-certified welder can no longer schedule five Inconel jobs at once, which is exactly the fiction the labor constraint exists to prevent.

This is one specific task. For how EDGEBIC books operator time and why it uses an hours ledger, read EDGEBIC operator and skill scheduling explained and the broader setup guide, how to set up operators, skills, and rosters.

Before You Start

• The skill created in the Operators area. Create it before you can require it.
• At least one operator certified for the skill and rostered on a shift the work center uses.
• The routing (Bill of Routing) open, with the step that needs the certification identified.
• A decision on the attention model: setup-only, fully attended, one person tending several machines, or a crew.

Step by Step

1. In Daily Hours, open the Operators area and add the skill to the skills catalog (for example, TIG-Inconel).
2. Select an operator, open the Skills tab, and add the certification.
3. On the operator's Roster tab, tick the shift and weekday cells the operator works.
4. Open the routing and select the step that needs the skill.
5. Set the step's Required Skill.
6. Set Operator attention: leave it at 0 for setup-only, set 1.0 for fully attended, use a fraction like 0.5 for one person tending two machines, or a value above 1 for a crew.
7. Save the routing.
8. Run Generate Schedule.

What Changes When You Save

On the next run, EDGEBIC adds the operator check to its capacity gate. A window is offered only if the machine calendar allows it and a qualified, rostered operator has free hours there. The engine tracks an hours ledger per operator, per day, per shift, so no person can be oversold even if two machines they cover overlap in the clock. Setup always books one operator; the run books operator time according to the attention fraction. A step that cannot find a qualified operator slides to the next staffed window rather than scheduling on nobody.

Steps without a required skill are untouched. Shops that never configure operators schedule exactly as before.

How to Check It Worked

Reschedule, then read the session log for the operator lines, which record each staffing decision. A skipped window prints the reason, naming the skill, and a booking prints who was booked and how much. In the Job View, a skill-required step shows a person icon and a required-skill column. If a step slid unexpectedly, the log tells you whether the operator pool was zero because nobody was rostered, everyone was on time off, or the certification had expired.

Common Mistakes

• Forgetting to roster the operator. A certified operator who is not rostered on the work center's shift contributes zero hours, so the step slides. Certification and roster are both required.
• A custom shift with no global parent. A work-center-local shift that does not derive from a global shift cannot be referenced by any roster row, so a skill step routed there finds a zero pool and fails loudly. Roster people on a global shift the work center mirrors.
• Leaving attention at zero when you meant attended. The default is setup-only, so a run books nobody. If the operation needs a person the whole time, set the attention fraction to 1.0, or the schedule will overstate how many machines one person can run.
• Trying to require two skills on one step. A step takes one skill. Model a two-certification operation as a single combined skill and certify only operators who hold both.

Where to Go Next

A required skill is only as good as the certifications behind it. Learn how to keep those current in how to certify an operator with an expiry date, and for the hours math see how EDGEBIC books operator hours. The full platform is at EDGEBIC, with more recipes in the EDGEBIC How-To Library.