Work Centers

A work center is a group of people and/or machines. Work centers also link departments with routing operations.

Work centers are the basic unit for operation scheduling and CRP. Depending on how you plan and schedule work, you can set up work centers for an individual machine or for groups of similar machines. If, for example, there are separate machines for polishing plastic lenses and polishing glass lenses, they would be set up as separate work centers. The system uses work centers for scheduling, planning, and determining costs for GL transactions.

Use Work Center Maintenance (14.5) to set up work centers.

Uniquely identify a work center by a work center code along with an optional machine code. Leave Machine blank if only one type of machine is in the work center. If there are multiple machine types or models, set up a different record for each machine, using the same work center ID.

Enter a department code, set up in Department Maintenance (14.1). You must assign each work center to a department.

Enter the standard time, in decimal hours, a job normally spends waiting at this work center before it is set up and processed and after processing has been completed. These values display as defaults when you reference this work center as part of a standard, routing, or process operation.

Enter the number of machines at this work center that can work at the same time to process a given operation. CRP uses this number to calculate work center capacity. This value displays as the default when you reference this work center as part of a standard, routing, or process. See Work Center Capacity.

Optionally, enter the number of people required to set up and run this work center. These fields are for reference only.

Enter the number of machines or people in this work center. CRP calculates the total capacity for a work center by multiplying the number of working hours, defined in the shop calendar, by the number of machines.

Enter the average labor rates paid per labor hour to set up and run this work center. These values are used by item cost calculations and by labor feedback functions to calculate and post actual costs and variances.

Note: Rates apply to all operations carried out at this work center. You cannot change them for individual operations.

Enter the burden rates per hour applicable to machine and labor run time and setup at this work center. These values are used by item cost calculations and by labor feedback functions to calculate and post actual costs and variances.

Enter the labor burden percentage applicable to the total labor cost at this work center.

Important: Changes to work center labor and burden fields affect how transaction amounts and product costs are calculated. They should be authorized by your cost accounting department.

CRP uses work center capacity when evaluating work center load. It is the total number of hours the work center is available to do work. Capacity varies with the work center calendar or shop calendar and the number of machines or people in the work center.

The work center number of machines should be at least as high as the number of machines per operation for this work center and for operations that use this work center.