What is a production family?

A production family can be used to group a set of parts that share the same capacity and resource constraints.   Once a production family is defined, a part can be linked to that production family.  After the part is linked, the PFEP for that part will automatically be updated with the correct capacity and resource constraints defined by the production family.

Why do I want to use a Production Family?

By using this grouping mechanism you can quickly define the capacity and resource constraints for multiple parts without having to individually go through each PFEP document to define that information.  Simply link the part to the Production Family and the PFEP document for that part will be populated with the Production Family's capacity and resource constraint information.

How is the % Capacity calculated for a Production Family?

Let's take a look at an example.   A production family contains a group of 3 parts.   Part 1 has a demand of 100 pieces per year.  Part 2 has a demand of 200 pieces per year.  Part  3 has a demand of 300 pieces per year.   A supplier has reported that his maximum capacity to produce all the parts in his production family is 1000 pieces per year.

% Capacity for the Production Family = (100 +200+300) / 1000 *100

% Capacity for the Production Family = 600/1000 * 100

% Capacity for the Production Family = 60%

                                       

How many Production Families exist within my production facility?

To begin identify the bottleneck resource for every part you produce. Now define a production family for each bottleneck resource.  Every part that shares that bottleneck resource would be in the same family.

How can I copy information about one part in a production family to another?

When you link a part to a production family, the part's PFEP will automatically be updated with the capacity information that was stored for the production family.   Copying information will not be necessary.

Do all parts in a production family share the same maximum capacity?

Yes, all parts that are linked to a production family have the same maximum capacity as the production family.

When do I use production family lead time defaults?

If many of the parts of your production family share the same Supplier Tier 2 lead time and Process Lead time, set the lead time defaults during the creation of the production family. Then when you link a part to that family, the product data sheet (PDS) for that part will be automatically populated with those values.

What if some of my parts in the production family have different lead times?

Simply override the lead time defaults values that get populated, by entering lead times on the individual product data sheet for those parts.

What if I change the default lead time values of my production family at a later time, will those values be rippled through all the parts in the family?

No, since overriding values may have been stored for some of the members of the production family at an early time, we wouldn't want to lose all that information.