We’ve been playing around with Capabilities recently. During our testing, we noticed some odd behavior and was hoping somebody could clarify why the system is behaving like it is…
Created a job with three Operations that are “Finish-to-Start”. Each Operation ONLY has a defined Capability as the Scheduling Resource - No direct Resource or Resource Group links defined.
Within that Capability record we have included 3 Resources.
Of those 3 Resources, we have defined Scheduling Priority Codes to use as tiebreakers.
During our testing, we scheduled the job during a quiet gap in the schedule. No other impacts are anywhere near this job. We simply created the job manually and scheduled it from the Actions menu. No Global Scheduling involved.
Once we scheduled the job, we checked the “Scheduled” Resources per Operation and they are all different Resources.
Our thinking is that “if there are no other scheduled Operations near this job, why wouldn’t the system assign each of these Operations to the Resource with available capacity as well as having the highest Scheduling Priority within that Capability?”
In general, if there are multiple resources available in a group, most systems take the lowest numbered resource that has available time.
It’s not perfect behavior, but that is how I’ve seen it work. Resource selection is simply a function of “what resource has available time”, and if more than one resource in a group has available time, the actual resource selected can be somewhat random in practice.
The concept behind multiple resources in a group is that they all have common capability. If you want to test priority, I would specify the same resource in the group on the job operation detail.
Priority of the job should affect the scheduling sequence when running a global. Apart from that, manually scheduling will not honor priority. To mirror that, manually unschedule all three jobs, then manually schedule them in priority sequence.
Sounds like you are talking about Resource Groups. Sam is asking about capabilities
Capabilities are only available with the advanced scheduling module and give greater flexibility and control of the routing. With capabilities you can set a priority order to break ties in the case where multiple resources under that capability have available capacity. So in Sam’s case, it should be selecting the first resource on that priority list that has available capacity.
Just so I know I am understanding you right…You’ve created a job with three operations (all using same capability) and there is enough room in the first resource’s schedule that all operations should be fitting into it’s schedule?
Do all of the operations fall on the same day?
What are your finite/infinite settings for the resources at?
Did you schedule the job with finite checked?
Do you have calendars set up for site and resources?
What is your finite window set at?
Just trying to understand a the situation because there are so many variables. Not that I am not a expert on this topic… Actually, I have been trying to figure out capabilities for a while now too and I agree there is some odd behavior. It doesn’t always act the way you would expect.
Anyway, I hope we can help each-other out!
Also see this thread if you haven’t yet…might be some helpful clues here as it probably has more to do with other aspects of the way Epicor schedules. Not just whether or not we are using capabilities.
