Migrating Your Setup Matrix to EDGEBIC

Migrating your setup matrix to EDGEBIC can go either way: the Sequence-Dependent Setup Matrix editor carries Import, Export CSV and Save Matrix in its footer, so you can bring a prepared matrix in or type it, whichever suits the volume you have. In EDGEBIC by User Solutions you enter the data through four tabs in dependency order, Families, then Product Families, then Family Matrix, then Product Overrides, one work center at a time. Setup families keep the volume manageable, the feature is opt-in per machine, and the Job View's Setup Reason column tells you immediately whether your migrated data is being used.

Why this data rarely exists in a file

Most systems being replaced carry one flat setup number per routing step. That single figure cannot express the thing that actually happens on a paint booth or a furnace: changeover time depends on what ran before, not only on what runs next. Going white to black may need a sixty-minute mask and extra coat, while black to white needs a two-hundred-and-forty-minute solvent flush and color match. A flat average is wrong in whichever direction you did not average for.

So the honest starting point for this part of a migration is that the source data usually is not in the old system at all. It lives with the setter, on a laminated sheet by the machine, or in the sequence the shift leader always runs. Collecting it is the real work; typing it in is quick.

What can and cannot be imported

This matters for planning, so be clear about it before you build a project plan around a bulk load.

The two flat values ride in on the normal import masks alongside everything else, so they follow the usual import order. The sequence-dependent cells are configured per work center instead, on the Setup Matrix tab of the Workcenter Configuration dialog. Its footer carries Import, Export CSV and Save Matrix, so you can bring a prepared matrix in or enter cells in the grids and save.

Where the editor lives

There are two routes, both scoped to a single machine. On the Workcenter tab, click the gear button in the work center row's Actions column. Or open the work center for editing and use its Setup Matrix tab, then Open Setup-Matrix Editor. Either way the dialog opens headed with that work center's name.

The dialog is keyed to the machine you opened it from and has no work center selector inside, which is deliberate: changeover physics belong to a specific machine. The paint booth's matrix says nothing about the welder.

The entry order that works

Enter the four tabs in this sequence. Going out of order is the most common way a first attempt stalls, because the dropdowns you need are still empty.

1. Families. Add one row per group, with a required Name and an optional short Code. For a paint booth that is usually two rows, Light Colors and Dark Colors.

2. Product Families. This tab lists every product with a Setup family dropdown. Assign each product to its group. Leave the dropdown empty only for products that should follow no family rule at all.

3. Family Matrix. A flat list of FROM and TO cells with columns for From family, To family, Setup (min) and Notes. Add a cell per direction that exists on the floor, and enter the time in minutes. Zero is a valid entry for a compatible pair. Negative values are rejected.

4. Product Overrides. Only for pairs that break their family rule, such as one specific red that needs an extra flush before black. A product cell always wins over the family cell for exactly that pair.

Save as you go. Closing with unsaved edits prompts you to confirm, which is a safety net rather than a plan.

Families are why this is a small job

The instinct on seeing a per-pair matrix is to estimate the product count squared and abandon the idea. Families remove that problem. One hundred products in eight families need at most sixty-four family cells instead of ten thousand product cells, and the same product running back to back is always zero changeover automatically, with no entry needed.

Group by what actually drives the changeover, which is color tone, alloy group or allergen class, rather than by your product catalog structure. Do that and the matrix stops growing when your catalog does: a new product inherits its family's behavior the moment you assign it.

Verifying the migration landed

An entered matrix is not proof of a working matrix. Schedule some work and read the Setup Reason column in the Job View, which records why each row got the setup time it did.

If a row you expected to read Matrix (family) reads a fallback instead, the usual cause is a missing family assignment, because a family cell only fires when both the previous and the next product carry a family. Fix the Product Families tab rather than adding more cells. This is the same load-first discipline used when validating a migrated schedule: check the mechanism, not just the import.

Note that saving the matrix changes no existing schedule on its own. The next Drive Schedule run resolves setups through the new data, so bars planned earlier keep the times they were planned with until then.

Do it one machine at a time, after cutover

Because the feature is opt-in per work center, this is not a go-live blocker. A machine with no matrix behaves exactly as before, using the flat setup ladder. That makes the sequence-dependent matrix a good candidate for the weeks after cutover rather than the crowded days before it, once your work centers and shifts are proven and the plan is trusted.

Start where changeover order visibly costs hours, confirm the Setup Reason column, then move to the next machine. Export CSV gives you a record of what you entered, with columns for type, from, to, setup minutes and notes, which is worth keeping with your migration documentation.

The takeaway

Migrating your setup matrix to EDGEBIC means collecting real changeover times per machine and typing them into the four tabs in order, Families, Product Families, Family Matrix, then Product Overrides, since the editor exports to CSV but has no import. Flat setup values still arrive on the Workcenter and BOR import masks as usual. Keep the matrix small with families, verify it through the Job View's Setup Reason column, and add machines one at a time after cutover, because a work center with no matrix keeps working exactly as it did. See the platform on the EDGEBIC overview, the upgrade path on the RMDB to EDGEBIC guide, and pair this with how EDGEBIC resolves setup time and an EDGEBIC migration checklist.