How to Set a True Alternate With a Speed Factor in EDGEBIC

To set a true alternate with a speed factor in EDGEBIC by User Solutions, add the alternate machine to the step and enter its own setup and hours, which is how the scheduler weighs its speed. A true alternative replaces the primary for that step on that job, and the engine uses the alternate's own numbers directly rather than scaling the primary. So the machine's speed is expressed through its own Hours Required: a slower machine gets larger hours, a faster one gets smaller hours. When you drive a schedule, the engine compares each candidate's speed and current load and books whichever finishes earliest under the Earliest Completion strategy.

This recipe covers one specific task: giving a fallback machine a different speed. For adding the alternate itself, see how to add an alternate work center to a step. For the mechanism, read EDGEBIC parallel work centers explained and how to configure parallel and alternate work centers.

Before You Start

• The routing open, with the step that needs a fallback machine identified, and the alternate machine already existing as a work center with shifts.
• The alternate machine's real setup and hours per unit for this operation, since those are the figures the scheduler uses. A slower machine gets larger hours.
• A decision on whether this fallback is a one-off for this step or a pattern you repeat, since a repeated pattern is better modeled as a work center group.

Step by Step

1. Open the BOR tab (Data Grid) and select the step (for example, the primary mill step).
2. Expand the step details panel and open the True Alternatives tab in the Parallel Processing section.
3. Click + Add True Alternative, pick the alternate machine in the popup, and confirm.
4. On the alternative's row, enter its own Setup Time and Hours Req'd as they apply on that machine. For a 20 percent slower machine, set the hours 20 percent higher than the primary's.
5. Optionally set the Priority (lower is tried first among alternatives).
6. Click Accept in the details panel, then Update Standard BOR.
7. Run Generate Schedule. In the Alternative Work Center Selection dialog, choose Auto with a strategy such as Earliest Completion.

What Changes When You Save

On the next scheduling run, the engine treats the primary and each true alternative as candidates and evaluates each against current shift capacity using the machine's own hours. Under Earliest Completion it books whichever candidate finishes soonest, so a slower alternate that is free today can beat a faster primary that is booked for days. Only one machine ends up running the step. Under Primary First, the primary wins whenever it has same-day capacity and the alternate is used only as overflow. Under Earliest Start, whichever machine can begin soonest wins. On a reschedule, a step with recorded actuals is locked to the machine that ran it, so the engine never swaps machines under work in progress.

How to Check It Worked

Open the Job View after scheduling and confirm which machine the step landed on. If the primary was busy and the alternate was free, the step should sit on the alternate with its longer, slower duration. Compare the alternate's booked hours to the value you entered to confirm its own hours were used, not the primary's. If the alternate was ignored while free, check the strategy: Primary First keeps the primary whenever it has same-day capacity.

Common Mistakes

• Reaching for a factor field. A true alternative uses its own hours, not a Parallel Factor. Enter the machine's real hours on its row.
• Entering the primary's hours on a slower machine. The scheduler uses whatever you type, so a slow machine with the primary's fast hours will be mis-scheduled. Enter the alternate's true rate.
• Repeating the same pair everywhere. If the same fast-and-slow machines appear across many steps, a work center group with per-member efficiency factors maintains the speed once instead of on every step.
• Expecting a swap under actuals. A step with recorded work stays on its machine on reschedule. The alternate is only chosen for not-yet-started work.

Related Reading

• How to bind a routing step to a machine pool for the reusable, factor-based version of the same idea.
• The schedule ignored my alternate work center if the fallback is not being picked.
• EDGEBIC and the EDGEBIC how-to hub for the full recipe set.

A true alternate with the right hours gives the scheduler a real choice: keep the primary when it is free, and route around it to a slower-but-available machine when the primary is a bottleneck, all judged on which machine actually finishes the job first.