| # Shared work centers A shared work center is a work center that has a relationship with a work center in the same or a different logistical company. You can use this relationship to plan work in one (or more) logistical companies that is actually carried out in a different company. When this relationship is defined, you do not need to use sales orders and purchase orders to subcontract work between those work centers in different companies. The hypothetical work center without physical resources, which is used for capacity planning, is the primary work center, and the operational work centers where the work is carried out are the secondary work centers. Example You produce medical equipment and you have a large autoclave facility used to sterilize equipment from several different factories, which are in different companies. If you do not use shared work centers, every time you want to sterilize some products you have to subcontract the work with purchase orders. Not only does this create lots of extra administration, but it makes capacity planning for the autoclave difficult. Instead, you can define the autoclave as a primary work center, and assign a percentage of its capacity to each of the other companies that need to use it, creating a secondary work center in each of the other companies. How to set up shared work centers Step 1. To share data The data used by the shared work centers must be available to all the companies involved. You can either share the tables or copy the data. You can share tables with the Logical Tables (ttaad4120m000) session. In case of sharing, the following data must be shared between the companies involved: Employees in the Employees - General (tccom0101m000) session. Operation rate codes in the Operation Rate Codes (ticpr0150m000) session. Warehouses in the Warehouses (tcemm1112m000) session. Departments in the Departments (tcemm1124m000) session. Availability types in the Availability Types (tcccp0101m000) and Calendar Availability Types (tcccp0150m000) sessions. Working hours types in the Working Hours Types (tcccp0103m000) session. Period tables in the Periods (tcccp0170m000) session. Machines in the Machines (tirou0102m000) session. Tasks in the Tasks (tirou0103m000) and Task Relationships (tirou0104m000) sessions. Calendar data in the Calendar Codes (tcccp0110m000) session. When the company calendar of a secondary work center differs from that of the primary work center (for example, different public holidays in different countries), you must create a work center specific calendar in the company of the secondary work center. The following parameters must be the same in the companies involved: Use of Sh. Fl. Wareh. in the Shop Floor Control Parameters (tisfc0500m000) session. Update Method Week Utilization in the Shop Floor Control Parameters (tisfc0500m000) session. Update Method Day Utilization in the Shop Floor Control Parameters (tisfc0500m000) session. Type of Operation Rates in the Cost Price Calculation Parameters (ticpr0100m000) session. Used Calendar Type in the Routing Parameters (tirou0100m000) session. Step 2. To define work centers In the Work Centers (tirou0101m000) session, define the primary work center and the secondary work centers. Make sure that you are working in the company that you want to use for the primary work center. You can change companies from the Tools menu of your Menu Browser. For the primary work center, select Primary in the Shared Type/ Primary Company field. For the secondary work centers, select Secondary in the Shared Type/ Primary Company field. Step 3. To define a shared work center relationship In the Work Centers (tirou0101m000) session, select the primary work center and, from the appropriate menu, start the Shared Work Center Relationships (tirou3100m000) session. In the Shared Work Center Relationships (tirou3100m000) session, insert a secondary work center for each of the companies that want to use a part of the capacity of the primary work center. The sum of the capacities of the secondary work centers can be greater than 100%, but you should only allow this to account for unusual circumstances, such as overtime. Note that before using the shared work centers you must negotiate the appropriate rates, prices, contracts, and so on. Note Because the primary work center is a virtual work center, it cannot be used in routing operations. To model the work center in a routing, define a shared secondary work center for it in the primary company and link it to the primary work center. How to use shared work centers Once you set up the shared work centers, you can plan with the secondary work centers like they were normal work centers. However, when you want to view what capacity you planned to use for shared work centers, you must be working in the company of the primary center (because that is where the information is stored and processed). You can view the utilization data for one particular secondary work center while working in the company of that seconday work center. You can view shared work center capacity utilization in the Shared Work Center Utilization (tisfc1510m000) session. From this session, you can start other sessions to display and print planned capacity utilization requirements in more detail. You can also use shared work centers in the Enterprise Planning package for resource requirement planning. Related topics Production orders - functional overview Integrations of SFC with warehousing Defining departments |