Building Block 2

Production Scheduling and Capacity Planning, Account Communication

The second building block in the DentaLab/PC II system provides for more advanced production scheduling, control and planning at task or work center level. This has been designed for medium to large laboratories interested in:

1. Planning capacities and evaluating performance in a number of departments and task centers within the laboratory.
2. Performing advance case planning in coordination with their dentists.
3. Pinpointing internal quality control problems, along with their sources and causes for corrective action.
4. Handling the needs of large governmental and hospital accounts for open item accounts receivable processing.

This can provide significant benefits in four major areas:

1. Enhance your service reputation by meeting the request dates and special preferences of each doctor.
2. Increase staff productivity by smoothing the workflow and reducing the time spent finding cases and researching questions.
3. Reduce the cost of doing business reducing paperwork, callbacks, and overtime labor. In many instances, you can handle increased caseloads without increasing personnel.
4. Develop your business through better communication and service and by spotting and correcting earlier any trouble spots that may develop.

SYSTEM FEATURES

• Capacity planning and scheduling for unlimited task centers
• Production/sales reporting by unlimited number of product groups
• Up to 50 major departments
• Past and future schedules available for instant inquiry
• Automatic scheduling with override capability
• Holiday/vacation schedules for multiple years
• Optional Saturday scheduling
• Unlimited preset cases for standard types of orders provide speed, accuracy, control
• No need to memorize or refer to procedure number lists
• Cases can be constructed from multiple presets and/or custom designed
• No limit to the number of items in each case
• Basic word processing features for free-form notes, instructions, and preferences
• Includes insert, delete, word wrap, use of the Windows clipboard
• Standing doctor preferences plus individual case instructions
• Doctor preferences by task center, by item
• Extensive doctor notepads for preferences, standing instructions, marketing and other pertinent information
• Extensive case planning notes for doctor plus patient/case control
• Contact logs to record telephone discussions, meetings, and promises
• Choice of case status table for tryins, finish, rush, etc.
• Tracking of doctor's materials/enclosures with case
• Cases Received Report by date or order number range
• Work tickets: prints on standard letter size paper
• Custom work tickets: paper size, fonts, colors, and barcodes dependent on printer
• Slack Time Report shows cases with extra time to meet doctor's request
• Rescheduling capabilities at any time
• Rapid list of cases for account shows status, dates on screen...you can scroll to select case for details screen
• Case details for account/patient can be recalled instantly
• Both open/current and closed/historical cases available for inquiry
• Case changes, redesigns, error correction, cancellations
• Orders Due List available at any time for selected date, selected task center(s)
• Automatic invoicing from orders
• Invoicing overrides permitted for discounts, remakes, prices, item descriptions, patient name, extra items
• Automatic discounting, taxation, individual price options
• Alternate bill-to accounts can be specified to combine billings
• Automatic transfer to sales and production analysis, accounts receivable, customer summaries
• Work ticket reprints available for one or range of tickets
• Cases flagged if doctor's request date cannot be met or if credit limit would be exceeded
• Quality Control for tracking internal remakes by case, cause and/or technician
• Inventory Tracking by case for metal weights, implant parts, etc. with feedback to billing
• Scanning of prescription and other case documents for screen display by account/patient/case

REPORTS

• Cases/Orders Received
• Work Tickets
• Orders Due by Task Center
• Orders Due for Final Completion
• Past Due Orders
• Orders on Hold
• Orders with Slack Time
• Orders by Route/Ship Via
• Customers by Route/Ship Via
• Quality Control for Case
• Quality Control by Internal Remake Cause
• Quality Control by Technician
• Case Plans by individual case and by account and/or date
• Contact Logs by account, dates
• Inventory Tracking audits by item, case, technician

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE REVIEW
OPEN ITEM METHOD WITH BALANCE FORWARD FEATURES

The Open Item Method keeps a separate record for each invoice and all of its related transactions such as credits, payments, and adjustments. This set of transactions is held in the open item file until the end of the month in which it is reduced to a zero balance. Then the set is moved to an archival file should subsequent review be needed. Some more features are:

• Up to 999,999 transaction sets can be stored in each open or archival file
• Both open and closed transactions can be retrieved for review
• Open balances are aged transaction by transaction and placed in current, over 30, 60, 90, 120, and 150 day categories
• Standard transaction types include invoices, payments, credits and adjustments
• Special transaction types include NSF (non-sufficient fund) checks, transfers and unapplied payments and credits
• Payment may be made to specific invoices or to the oldest open balance transactions
• Individual transaction ledgers are available quickly on screen or printer
• Mid-month statements can be produced for up to date balances at any time
• Statements can be printed open item or balance forward style as specified for each account.
• 12 month's revolving history to reprint statements, review history ledgers, aged balances

PRODUCTION SCHEDULING REVIEW
TASK LEVEL SCHEDULING/CAPACITY PLANNING

This set of programs provides a very detailed method of scheduling the workflow through the laboratory. Use of four-character alphanumeric task center and task set identifiers provides complete flexibility for designing your workflow through the departments and subdepartments of your laboratory. If branches or outside operations are part of your business, these can easily be fit in to the work flow structure.

Scheduling is performed in half days segments, taking into consideration planned daily capacities, holidays and weekends. Although this method requires thorough planning and setup at the start, it can bring even greater smoothness and efficiency to the workflow once it is in operation.

The structure of planning includes, from bottom to top:

• Items: your products, services, procedures, work instructions
• Task Centers: subdepartments, work centers, employee groups and/or even individual employees for which you want to set daily capacities, schedule and monitor wok
• Major Departments: the major divisions of your business such as Dentures or Crown & Bridge

To expedite case entry and scheduling, Preset Cases can be setup to establish a base structure of task center, item, quantity and half-days for each standard type of case. Several items can be included in each half-day of scheduling and task sets may be used as is or modified for a particular case. You can also specify whether or not each item's quantity should be multiplied by the case entry units.

Additional specifications include:

• Up to 50 major departments may be specified.
• Items (3 characters), Task Centers and Preset Cases (4 characters) are virtually unlimited
• You may use letters, special characters and/or numbers to identify your work components.
• Once the system is set-up, you no longer need to refer to codes.
• You may use whatever terminology or language you require to describe your work.
• Up to 25 holidays/closed days may be specified for each year
• You can set up future schedules whenever you are wish.
• You can choose whether to schedule Saturday work or not.
• The system can automatically set up the monthly schedules, if you have not done so already, using the latest month for guidance in establishing unit capacities.
• To establish units for scheduling, you can use a simple one-for-one approach or choose more sophisticated methods.
• If you prefer full-day scheduling, you can setup halfdays in multiples of 2.
• You can override the start date for scheduling.
• You can review past schedules and completions to fine-tune your scheduling factors.
• Cases can be constructed from multiple preset cases and/or custom designed
• Each case can have an unlimited number of items
• Items may be specified for printing only on work tickets or only on invoices or on both.

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