How to Temporarily Disable a Parallel Work Center in EDGEBIC

Clearing the active flag on an alternative work center row in EDGEBIC by User Solutions removes that machine from the candidate list for one routing step, without deleting any of its configuration. The speed factor, the per-machine setup, and the priority all stay exactly as entered, waiting for the flag to be ticked back on. This is how to take a machine out and put it back.

Every task in this library is mapped on the EDGEBIC how-to hub. For the underlying idea of scheduling against real machine limits, see finite versus infinite capacity scheduling.

Before You Start

• The routing step already has a parallel or alternate configuration. This task edits an existing row, it does not create one.
• You have decided this is a routing decision rather than a calendar fact. If the machine is physically down, a downtime event is the correct tool instead.
• You have edit rights on routings, since the flag lives on the routing step.

Step 1: Open the Step's Alternative Work Centers Grid

Open the routing for the product, select the step, and open its Alternative Work Centers grid. Every machine configured to run alongside or instead of the primary appears here as a row, with its type, speed factor, priority, and active flag.

Step 2: Clear the Active Flag

Find the row for the machine you want out and set Active to off. Change nothing else. The point of this task is that the row survives intact.

Save the routing.

Step 3: Re-Run the Schedule

The candidate list is built during a scheduling run, so the plan does not change until you run it. Re-run the schedule for the affected jobs.

During that run, inactive rows are skipped before the candidate list is assembled. The engine simply proceeds with whatever machines remain active, so there is no error and no warning: the machine is not considered at all.

Step 4: Understand What Changed

What happens next depends on how the step was configured.

A step that gets noticeably longer is not a fault. It is the plan reporting what the surviving machines can actually do. Method for the parallel setup itself is in how to make two operations run in parallel.

Step 5: Put the Machine Back

Tick the active flag back on and re-run. Because nothing was deleted, the machine returns with its original speed factor, setup, and priority. There is no reconfiguration step and no risk of typing a different factor than the one that was there before, which is the whole reason to use the flag rather than deleting the row.

Flag or Downtime: How to Choose

Ask one question. Is the machine unavailable to the whole plant, or just to this routing step?

• Unavailable to the whole plant, for known dates. Use a downtime event on the work center. See how to schedule a downtime event for a machine. It blocks every step assigned to that station and releases automatically when the window ends.
• Available, but this step should stop using it. Clear the active flag. It affects one step and holds until someone reverses it.

Getting this backwards is the most common error. A flag used for a week-long breakdown leaves the machine fully bookable by every other product, so the plan still over-promises.

How to Check It Worked

• Re-run and read the step on the Gantt. The disabled machine should carry no bars for that step. If it still does, the schedule was not re-run.
• The step's duration moved the way you expected. On an independent parallel step, losing one of two machines should roughly double the elapsed time.
• Other products are unaffected. Open a different product that uses the same station and confirm it still schedules there. If it does not, you disabled the station itself somewhere rather than the row.
• The row is still there. Open the grid again. The machine should be present with its original numbers and an unticked flag.

Common Mistakes

• Deleting the row instead of clearing the flag. Deletion loses the speed factor and per-machine setup, and rebuilding them from memory later is where wrong numbers enter a routing.
• Using the flag for a physical breakdown. It only covers one step, so every other product keeps booking the broken machine.
• Forgetting to re-run. The existing plan is unchanged until the engine runs again.
• Expecting in-progress work to move. Work already logged as started stays on the machine it started on, which is correct: completed work is never moved by a reschedule.

See how EDGEBIC schedules parallel and alternate machines on the EDGEBIC product page.