Work Station

Work Stations are a critical component of accurate scheduling. Without them it is not possible to create a meaningful schedule unless you run either a one man operation or one where each employee is interchangeable and is able to perform every operation on a part from start to finish.

Work Stations can be any one of the following:
1. A manufacturing plant where work is performed
2. An area or department in a manufacturing plant where work is performed.
3. A single piece of equipment or a group of many pieces of equipment
4. An entity, person or a group of people who perform work.

There may be some other definitions but basically a Work Station is where work is performed and where that work can be measured in units of time. The purpose of this definition is to create logical work units into which the various manufacturing processes can be divided and monitored and to which capacities can be assigned. Capacity is defined as the amount of work in hours that can be performed in a given day.

Mean Station capacities are assigned to each day of the week that is normally worked. 

Exceptions, e.g. public holidays, shutdowns, extra planned overtime periods, etc. can be entered in the exceptions list to present an accurate picture of total capacity for each Work Station.