Issues

As part of our Factory OS, ION leverage its Issues module to provide quality management while being tightly integrated into production. With Issues, manufacturers can:

• Capture data about problems in hardware builds

• Isolate nonconforming parts and prevent quality escapes

• Track and enforce decisions made the Material Review Board

• Trace material through complicated repair and Return Merchandise Authorization processes

• Identify opportunities for process improvement

• Assign team members to drive issues and their associated dispositions

Issue Functionality

Issue Creation

Issue Creation Fields

• Inventory: Attach the inventory associated with the issue.

• Destination: Select a destination in which to move the inventory. An example use case is moving this inventory to an MRB location until issue resolution occurs.

• Text fields: Document what happened and what was expected to happen.

• Attributes: Populate attributes relevant to this issue.

Areas Of the Issue Ticket:

Main Body Content

• Fields in main body accept images

• Auto-expansion as information is filed out in these fields

• The fields show saved status. To save click out of the main body and verify with the "Saved" status.

• Alias these fields to customize the title of each section, do so through your Issues organization settings.

Value

This enables the user to view long form paragraphs that are often a result of disposition or issue descriptions. Viewing all the content at once time allows people to connect the dots and better ideate on solutions to the issue at hand. The save status finally will ensure that your hard work is not lost when interacting with these fields. It will also help facilitate printing of the issues page as information will not be hidden in scrolling viewports.

Content Side Bar

• Greater accessibility to the items related to the issue ticket.

• File preview when you click on attachments

• Side rail selection is made obvious through color change

• Hide the rail to support a clean containerized look for editing main body fields.

Value

The side bar plays nicely into the container styling the the issues page inherits. Quick access to items within the side bar allow for quicker referencing of those items within main body text. It also allows for a minimized scrolling experience on the screen.

Approvals Modal

• Approvals Modal Flow Indication

  • Steps for approval more apparent (Disposition and Resolution)

  • Movement through those steps made obvious

  • Clear indications of when you can and cannot do things

  • Status tool tips in the overflow menu of why states are accessible/ inaccessible at times

  • Approvals accessible without scrolling to the bottom of the history.

Value

The modal surfacing what approval gate you are trying to pass through will inherently improve flow through the most streamlined process. This new flow also decreases the number of clicks needed to move an issue through its various states. Buttons from within the modal and better logic automatically update the issue's status. Tool tips give insight into why the ticket can or cannot be moves through different states decreasing user frustration and guiding what the expected next steps are.

Redlines

• See here for overarching redlines functionality and best practices.

• Create redlines directly from the issues page in the redlines menu run step picker.

  • Adding a run step that is in TO DO here will move that step into redline.

  • Adding a run step that is in REDLINE will associate that redline with this issue ticket.

    • NOTE: Redlines that are already associated with another issue will not show up here as they are critical to solving that "other" issue. If you do need to change the association, you can do so from the run itself.

• Redlines show all prior approved redlines associated with the issue as well as the open redlines on the issue. (Previous version only showed open redlines and did not include redline ID)

• When passing through approval gates, any open redlines get approved as part of the issue approvals process! This feature has always been there, this is merely a reminder of such.

Header

• Better understand the progress being made on the issue by the Issue Status bar.

  • Move between statuses if you desire using the arrows at the end of bar.

    • Movement is dictated by the state you are in plus the disposition and approvals statuses.

Comments

• Comments are now always surfaced on the front page.

• This brings them out of the approvals and sidebars menu to increase collaboration and visibility.

• The activity feed creates a in-line comments view with approvals and rejections so that context is conveyed with the comment.

Issues On Inventory

Inventory can be linked to issues to indicate manufacturing errors, damage, or other problems.

Inventory can be linked to issues in the following ways:

• Issues can be created directly from Inventory from the Inventory and Purchases menus

• If an issue is made from a run with a linked inventory, that inventory is automatically linked to the issue

Issues can be linked multiple inventory items at the same time to allow you to process and disposition identical problems under one issue ticket.

Issues On Runs

Issues can also be linked to runs in multiple ways.

• When an issue is made from a run or from failing a step, the run is automatically linked.

• Redlines can be linked to steps on runs to indicate work associated with the issue

• When making an issue manually, you can add a run and step where the problem was found.

• Issues have a Must Close By field that, when set, blocks run progress based on the issue’s status.

Value

The redesigned cards allow for easier viewing of information related to the issue. In some cases they provide even more information than they used to while keeping the design minimal and allowing users to intuit what actions can be performed from the cards or dropdowns on the cards.

Blocking Progress on Runs

The "Resolve Issue by Step" feature on the issue ticket allows the assignment of resolution to any step within the run. This could be:

• The same step where the issue was found, halting work until it’s resolved.

• The final step in the run, ensuring all issues are addressed before completion.

• Any step in between.

If the selected step is downstream of the step where the issue was found, that step cannot begin until the issue is resolved.

Issue Indicators

Issues are indicated across ION by a warning sign (⚠️) and an orange badge.

Objects in ION with issues will display the issue badge and show a numeric count of issues attached to that object in a “M / N” format

• The first number indicates the number of unresolved issues on that object

• The second number indicates the total number of issues on that object.

You can click on the issue badge to see more information about the linked issues and navigate to them.

Other Functionality:

• Containerization reduces eye fatigue and focuses users attention on long form issue descriptions.

• Performance improvements such as time to load first content.

• Outside Processing Steps (OSP) are brought to life with their POs being visible.

  • Irremovable label when the step the issue was found on is an OSP step

  • POs associated with parts are shown as a dropdown of that inventory

• Further Actions will be able to be created directly from the Issue Page. This close relation will allow you to continue solving problems while not holding up the resolution of individual issue occurences.

Value

With issue resolution being linked to the same run step in which the issue was found on, faster resolution of said issue can occur. This is the most stringent issue resolution timeframe ever made possible. Negate any risk by completely blocking progress. (Don't worry, we still have the flexibility to proceed on the run if you wish, just don't populate the field with the step the issue was found on!) Further Actions will be easily accessible to round out quality solutions and make including suppliers involved in OSP steps more visible within ION.

Best Practices:

1. We'd recommend creating issues in the following manor for best traceability throughout your production line. This will empower your supply chain and manufacturing teams with the highest quality data to drive change at your organization.

1. You can always understand the history of a part through its transaction history report in the inventory view. This is especially powerful when dealing with issues involving a component removed from an assembly and resolved separately. By following the best practice process outlined above, you can still see the original aBOM that the component was a part of through the transaction history view.