Item Grades

An Item Grade defines the physical condition of an item. You can define an unlimited number of Item Grades. This allows you to increase the flexibility of tracking the quality of an instances of an item produced and/or consumed, such as a lot. For example, a process that produces an item must be tested to determine its grade. You can define grades as A, B, and C for the produced item.

Item Grades are used in the Wonderware MES Client to restrict the consumption and shipment of materials. Item grades are closely related to item states and item reasons.

When you open the Item Grades module in the Wonderware MES Client Product Definition group, a list of all the existing item grades is shown in the. Item grades are closely related to item states and item reasons. However, item grades are used by the internal logic of the system to restrict consumption and shipment of materials.

Item States

An Item State defines the possible state for an instance of an item that determines its minimal shippable and/or consumable standards. You can use the Item States module in the Wonderware MES Client Product Definition group to create and maintain item states. When you open the Item States module, a list of all existing item states is shown in the .

Item Reasons

An Item Reason defines a reason for an item to be in any state and grade. You can use the Item Reasons module in the Product Definition group of the Wonderware MES Client to create and maintain item reason groups and reasons. The Item Reason group and the reasons associated to that reason group are assigned to item classes and entities to specify which reasons are applicable to different item classes or entities.

Item Reason Groups

Item reason groups are used to organize similar reasons. An item reason is selected when production or consumption of an item is reported and then this reason determines the state and grade of the lot of an item. A reason can be selected by PLC, I/O, or an operator.

You can assign multiple item reason groups to an item class. The following groups are available on the Current View tab:

View

In the View group, the following commands are available:

• Default View – Shows a list of all the existing item reason groups and reasons.
• Group By Item Classes – Shows a list of all the reasons by group. When you click Group By Item Classes, the group name and description of all the available reason groups class is shown in the . Click the plus (+) symbol to expand an item reason group and view the list of reasons in that group.
• Group By Entities – Shows a list of all the reasons grouped by entities. When you click Group By Entities, the name and description of all the available entities is shown in the . Click the plus (+) symbol to expand an entity group and view the list of reasons in that group.

Sequence

In the Sequence group, the following commands are available:

• First – Changes the selected item reason to the first item reason
• Up – Moves up the selected item reason
• Down – Moves down the selected item reason
• Last – Changes the selected item reason to the last item reason

View Relationships

In the View Relationships group, the following command is available:

• View Relationships – Shows a graphical representation of the relationship between an item group, an item class, and entities.

Using Item Reasons

To use Item Reasons in runtime Production and Consumption counters, you must provide a reference to a reason in the appropriate location in the Operations Capability Object.

To use configure an Item reason for a production counter, provide a reference to a production reason attribute, or select an item reason from the list of item reasons defined in the MES system whose reason group is classified as Produced, in the Production Reason box while configuring the production counter.

Likewise, if you wish to configure an Item Reason for a consumption counter, provide a reference to a consumption reason attribute, or select an item reason from the list of item reasons defined in the MES system whose reason group is classified as Consumed, in the Consumption Reason box while configuring the production counter.