Schedule Execution

The execution of a production schedule is tracked in the Production_Plan_Starts table. The Schedule Manager service uses the records in this table as the basis for the production statistics (for example, Actual Quantity, Forecast End Time, Production Efficiency, Time Efficiency, and so on). Depending on the setting of the “Path Controlled By A Schedule” in the Execution Path configuration, records will be created in this table to record the start and end times a process order was run on a particular unit. Within the standard functionality of Plant Applications, the units a process order can be run on is limited to the units included in the Execution Path bound to the process at that time.

However, a process order can be unbound from one path and bound to another and the existing history in Production_Plan_Starts will be retained. As such, you can run a process order on multiple paths and the standard process order statistics calculations will report data based on all of them.

Records in the Production_Plan_Starts table can be created programmatically using either result set 17 or the Plant Applications SDK. Any Production_Plan_Starts messages sent on the Message Bus will be picked up by the Schedule Manager service which will in turn react by recalculating the process order statistics.

For process orders, the status “Active” has special functionality. When the status of a process order is changed to “Active” then immediately a record is created in the Production_Plan_Starts table for the production unit (PU_Id) that corresponds to the Schedule Point unit in the Execution Path.

Furthermore, depending on the settings of the “Path Controlled By A Schedule”, additional records may also be created in Production_Plan_Starts for the other units in the path.