Manufacturing operations often run more efficiently when similar jobs are scheduled together. Examples include running the same paint color, material, tooling, fixture, or treatment consecutively to reduce cleaning, setup, or changeover time.

MxAPS supports this using Setup Eliminations and Minimize Setup. Setup reduction can be based on shared item characteristics such as color or raw material, including cases where the preferred sequence depends on the combination of the previous and next item.

Configure setup elimination

Use Setup Eliminations to define when a setup can be reduced or eliminated between operations.

For example, an anodizing process may have colors such as:

• Clear
• Champagne
• Bronze
• Dark Bronze
• Black

Setup elimination rules can represent which transitions require little or no changeover time and which require a full setup. This allows MxAPS to account for the benefit of keeping compatible jobs together rather than treating every transition as having the same setup requirement.

For detailed configuration steps, see the MxAPS articles for Setup Elimination and Setup Minimization.

Enable Minimize Setup

On the applicable routing or production order routing operation, enable Minimize Setup.

When enabled, MxAPS can prefer a Machine Center where an available setup elimination reduces the required changeover. This preference can result in the operation finishing later than it would if MxAPS selected only the machine with the earliest available finish time.

Use this option when reducing changeovers is more important than always selecting the machine that can finish the individual operation earliest.

Balance setup reduction with production priorities

Setup minimization is only one consideration in the schedule. MxAPS scheduling rules can also use factors such as Priority, Class, Rank, and due dates to determine the sequence of work. The Schedule Result page allows Priority and Class to be adjusted and the schedule regenerated.

This allows a schedule to normally keep similar jobs together while still giving urgent or higher-priority production orders greater scheduling importance.

For information about controlling production priorities, see the MxAPS documentation for scheduling priorities and the MxAPS Schedule Result.

Example

For a finishing operation, Setup Eliminations could be configured to encourage transitions such as:

Clear → Champagne → Bronze → Dark Bronze → Black

MxAPS can then use the reduced setup times when building the schedule, while still considering capacity, availability, due dates, and configured scheduling priorities.

This is more flexible than simply sorting production orders by a color field because the scheduling benefit is based on the actual changeover between consecutive jobs.

Related Articles

• How MxAPS Reduces Changeovers – Overview of how MxAPS uses setup reduction and elimination when scheduling similar work.
• How to use setup eliminations to reduce setup time – Configure setup eliminations to reduce or remove setup time between compatible operations.
• Configuring Native Setup Eliminations – Configure Business Central and MxAPS setup-elimination values used during scheduling.
• How to Configure a Rush Order in MxAPS – Give urgent production orders greater scheduling priority when they need to override normal sequencing.
• Preventing Lower-Ranked Orders from Filling Schedule Gaps – Control how rank and scheduling behavior affect the sequence of production orders.