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Function documentationTime-Sensitive Materials

 

Time-sensitive materials (TSM) are materials whose quality or effectiveness degrade over time and which are often kept in a controlled environment when not being used on the shop floor. For example, composite and moisture-sensitive materials used during various assembly and fabrication processes in the high-tech, aerospace, automotive, and life sciences industries.

Time-sensitive materials require special management and monitoring. This function is aimed at capturing and tracking time associated with the shelf life and floor life of materials that are sensitive to environmental conditions.

Features

This function allows you to do the following:

  • Define and update time constraints for TSM (see Material Maintenance and Maintain Floor Stock)

    When a material is received via Floor Stock Receipt, a TSM record is created for it and the material is automatically checked in. The Maintain Floor Stock activity provides the capability to update the maximum shelf life for an inventory material, if the activity rule ALLOW_UPDATE_FLOOR_LIFE is set to YES. This is applicable to situations where the material has been renewed or reconditioned to extend its shelf life.

  • Check in and check out TSM (see Time-Sensitive Material Check In/Out)

    As soon as a check-out is performed, TSM captures the checkout date and time and starts decreasing the Remaining Floor Life (starts / restarts the floor life clock) for the SFC number or inventory ID. Check-out does not stop the shelf life clock. The shelf life clock starts as soon as the material is checked in the first time and it does not stop until the Stop Time Sensitive Clock activity stops it, the Remaining Shelf Life reaches zero or the Remaining Floor Life reaches zero.

    If an operator tries to assemble a time-sensitive component that is not checked out, the operator is prompted to perform the check-out.

    As soon as a check-in is performed, TSM captures the check-in date and time and stops consumption of floor life units for the selected SFC number or inventory ID. Check-in resets the Current Time Out clock to zero for the selected SFC number or inventory ID.

    TSM starts the shelf life clock when the SFC number or inventory ID is received via Shop Floor Receipt.

    Recommendation Recommendation

    Since each piece, or unit of material, that is checked in and out of storage must have its own unique identifier (SFC number or inventory ID), each one should be received into floor stock separately even if they were provided in a single lot by the vendor.

    End of the recommendation.

  • Validate TSM (see Check Time-Sensitive Components)

    Checking out a TSM component is not permitted in the system if the maximum shelf life has been exceeded. To avoid this, the Check Time-Sensitive Components hook point activity can be placed at the PRE_START or PRE_COMPLETE hook point at an operation or resource to prevent the processing of an SFC number if any TSM component has expired.

  • Stop time-sensitive clocks (see Stop Time-Sensitive Clock)

    To stop time measurement clocks for all TSM components used at a particular operation, the Stop Time-Sensitive Clock hook point activity can be placed at a PRE_COMPLETE hook point at an operation. This hook point activity stops both shelf life and floor life clocks for the SFC number and all its associated time-sensitive components. As a result, the SFC number and its assembled components are no longer considered time-sensitive.

    This can be used for normal processing, where the installed component is no longer time sensitive, and for exception processing, where the SFC is being scrapped.

Process Flow

The following figure illustrates the high-level flow of the setup and use of the TSM function.

Example

When an operator working in the POD assembles a component defined as time-sensitive, the system prompts the operator to check this component out of a controlled environment. Once the user performs checkout, the clock starts decreasing the floor life time attribute. The system captures the checkout date and time and starts consumption of floor life units for the selected inventory ID. To stop calculating floor life for the component, the operator performs check-in. The system captures the check-in date and time and stops consumption of floor life units for the selected inventory ID. Check-in does not stop the shelf life clock. Check-in resets the Current Time Out Clock to zero for the selected inventory ID. Current Time Out is the current elapsed time, in minutes or hours, exposed to the atmosphere for the entire SFC number comprising the maximum elapsed exposure time of any single active inventory ID included within this parent SFC number.