|Publication number||US7698177 B2|
|Application number||US 10/969,702|
|Publication date||Apr 13, 2010|
|Priority date||Oct 20, 2003|
|Also published as||DE10348607A1, US20050086134|
|Publication number||10969702, 969702, US 7698177 B2, US 7698177B2, US-B2-7698177, US7698177 B2, US7698177B2|
|Inventors||Harald Bär, Günther Deeg, Günther Domauer, Martina Gottwald, Jürgen Reinhardt, Roland Wentorf|
|Original Assignee||Siemens Aktiengesellschaft|
|Export Citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Patent Citations (12), Non-Patent Citations (1), Classifications (6), Legal Events (2)|
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet|
This application claims priority to the German application No. 10348607.0, filed Oct. 20, 2003 and which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
The present invention relates to a device for displaying current status during order processing in a production plant, which is particularly advantageous for logistics departments.
It is very important for a logistics department in a company to display the logistics processes for source, make and deliver in a transparent and clear manner for all its employees, to simplify their work. This relates in particular to information about order planning, requisition of production materials, supply of production materials with location data, allocation of production areas, past and present process malfunctions, delivery of finished parts to packaging with type of packaging and loading date and arrival date with the customer. The information should be accessible to all employees at all times and should be easy to request and easy to understand.
Different planning tools have been available on the market to date, which can be used for resource planning, but the inventors do not know of any device, which displays important information for employees in a clear and easily understandable manner.
U.S. 2002/0010519 A1 relates to a device for displaying the current status during order processing in a production plant, with which the information is displayed to employees on a large-scale display. This is to ensure that all the employees working in an area can obtain the information they re-quire, which may also contain instructions for subsequent activities, at any time. This information is thereby displayed as a function of the respective area in which the display is located. A tabular overview of information relating to the current status of order processing is displayed on the monitor with this device. The device also offers th e option of specifically requesting a graphic overview in the form of a line or bar chart, providing an up-to-date summary of production status.
U.S. 2002/0054101 A1 describes a control system for monitoring, con-trolling and reporting in a plant, for example a production plant, in the form of a graphic user interface. This graphic user interface provides different menu levels, some of which provide an overview of the physical arrangement of the individual units or elements of the plant and others of which provide information about the organizational structure of the plant. The individual units of the plant can thereby be displayed in the physical layout as color-coded areas, whereby the color-coding reflects the current status of the respective unit, e.g. a machine. The last-mentioned control system offers a plurality of options but does not allow a fast overview of the processing of an order because it is object-related or element-related.
An object of the present invention is therefore to specify a device for displaying current status during order processing in a production plant, which allows a clear display of the source, make and de-liver processes for all employees. In particular the operation and display functions should be easily understandable for employees even without training.
The object is achieved by the claims. Advantageous embodiments of the device are set out in the dependant claims or will emerge from the description below and the exemplary embodiments.
The present device comprises an interface to a data processing sys-tem, from which up-to-date information is obtained about order processing in the production plant, comprising at least the source, make and deliver processes. Such a data processing system is available in many plants and the corresponding data is input into it and continuously updated by employees and to some extent also automatically. The device also comprises a processing unit for processing the up-to-date information from the data processing system relating to at least one process selected by an operator in graphic form, whereby processing in graphic form includes the graphic display of the allocation of material supply areas for the source process, the graphic display of the allocation of production areas for the make process and the graphic display of essential information for packaging and delivery for the deliver process. Material supply and production areas here refer to the areas provided in the plant, in which the corresponding activities are carried out. The device also comprises an output unit for outputting the processed information supplied by the processing unit relating to the selected process in the corresponding graphic display on one or a plurality of monitors.
Processing the information in graphic form so that a graphic display of the allocation of the material supply areas, the production areas and a graphic display of the essential information for packaging and delivery are available for the operator in one place on a monitor, means that the operator can review the individual processes even without additional training. The option of a direct link via the interface to the data processing system, in which the most up-to-date information is available, means that current status during order processing can be requested and viewed at any time on the monitors linked to the output unit. The monitors are preferably linked to the output unit by means of a local network (intranet) so that access is possible for all employees at any local monitor in th e plant linked via the network. No additional cabling is therefore required, as a LAN connection is generally available in a plant. The purely graphic representation with branching options to deeper levels simply by clicking on the respective area in question—or by touching the area in the case of touch screen monitors—means that the device is extremely simple to operate.
The processing unit is configured such that it supplies the graphic display of the allocation of material supply areas for each order by displaying a chain of defined areas, with the order number(s) input in one area and allocation from the number of material supply areas in another area. The individual chains can be displayed in rows or columns. Information about the current status of material supply in respect of completeness, any defective parts or failure to comply with the time schedule is also provided by color-coding of one or a plurality of the defined areas displayed in the graphic display. This color display makes supply status clear to the operator at first glance.
The processing unit is also configured such that it supplies the graphic display of the allocation of production areas by displaying a number of defined areas, which corresponds to the number of production areas, whereby allocation of the production areas is input by indicating the respective order in the defined areas. This display also allows an immediate overview of the allocation of the available production areas. Information about the current status of production in respect of malfunctions influencing the end of production is provided by color-coding one or a plurality of the areas in the graphic display. The operator can therefore identify possible problems at first glance here too.
In a development of the previous embodiments the processing unit is configured such that the operator can click on the defined surfaces at a graphic user interface, in particular the monitors for displaying information, to generate additional information, in particular order number, target start and target end, actual start and actual end or planned end of production as well as process malfunctions on a new page, which is output by the output unit for display on one or a plurality of monitors. With this configuration the user is able to obtain more detailed information about the individual orders, which cannot otherwise be seen in the single-page graphic display of the process.
The present processing device is also configured such that it pro-vides the graphic display of essential information for packaging and delivery for every order by displaying a chain of defined areas, in which the information is input. This display mode is therefore similar to the one used in one configuration for displaying the allocation of material supply areas. The essential information thereby also contains graphic information about whether additional resources are required for the respective order in order to comply with a pre-defined loading and therefore delivery date. This graphic information is supplied by color-coding one or a plurality of areas so that the operator can see any problems at first glance here too.
In a further embodiment of the present device the processing unit is configured such that it has an additional function for the graphic display of metrics for the individual processes, which can be selected by the operator via the graphic user interface. Such metrics may for example represent the throughput times of all processes within a defined period.
Graphic processing by the processing unit of the information re-quested is preferably achieved by means of a graphic display in an XML or HTML format, so that it can be displayed immediately by means of correspondingly extended programs. The processing unit thereby processes such that the allocation of material supply areas for the source process, the allocation of production areas for the make process and the essential information for the deliver process are all displayed graphically on a single page. Additional information can be requested by clicking appropriately on the area provided in the display, which is then displayed in more detail on a new page.
The present device is described in further detail below with reference to an exemplary embodiment in conjunction with the drawings, in which:
New or modified relevant data is sent online from the data processing system 5 via the interface 1 to the processing unit 2 and stored there. If corresponding information is requested by an operator, the data no longer has to be retrieved from the data processing system 5 so a clear time advantage results. The information is then processed graphically, to allow a graphic display of allocation of the material supply areas on one page. The graphic display is output via the output unit 3 on the corresponding monitor 4, at which said data was requested. The graphics displayed are all structured as HTML or XML pages. The operator can use the command areas displayed correspondingly on the page to move to a display of the other make or deliver processes or can even obtain more detailed information about the individual order or source/make/deliver status by clicking on a corresponding area.
By clicking on the “Make” command area the user can then request in-formation about the production process.
This display also provides a chain of fields for each individual order, as already described in relation to
To operate the device at least one monitor can be deployed for example at each production area, said monitor being connected to the de-vice and displaying details of the production order ongoing at the respective production area. The displays on the individual monitors can of course be independent of each other, so that for example the source process can be displayed on one monitor and details of a production order on another monitor. By configuring the monitors as commercially available monitors with touch function and no keyboard or mouse, the specified information, which can be made accessible to all employees at all times via the monitors, can be requested simply and very quickly. The graphic display allows a fast overview of the corresponding process.
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|Cooperative Classification||G06Q10/087, G06Q10/06|
|European Classification||G06Q10/06, G06Q10/087|
|Oct 20, 2004||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: SIEMENS AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT, GERMANY
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:BAR, HARALD;DEEG, GUNTHER;DORNAUER, GUNTHER;AND OTHERS;REEL/FRAME:015922/0850;SIGNING DATES FROM 20040922 TO 20040927
Owner name: SIEMENS AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT,GERMANY
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:BAR, HARALD;DEEG, GUNTHER;DORNAUER, GUNTHER;AND OTHERS;SIGNING DATES FROM 20040922 TO 20040927;REEL/FRAME:015922/0850
|Sep 16, 2013||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 4