Available at No Charge for SaaS and Maintenance Customers
April 4, 2022 (San Ramon, CA) – Wright Williams & Kelly, Inc. (WWK), the global leader in Cloud-based cost and productivity management software and consulting services, announced today that it has released its latest version of Factory Commander®, version 4.0.
Developed with Sandia National Laboratories, Factory Commander® is the most widely used Cost and Resource Evaluation software platform that is applied to any discrete manufacturing or assembly operation. It performs high-level cost analyses of overall factory and individual product costs, manufacturing capacity, and revenues. It can be applied to both strategic new factory design and tactical current factory optimization.
Some examples of the new features in version 4.0 include:
Expanded Modeling Capabilities
- Ability to specify more than two production units within a process – The capability now exists for more than two defined production units to be configured within any given process. As many as 5 named units can be defined per process flow. In addition to the starting and ending units, up to three middle or transitory units of production can be defined. The unit conversion factors have also be been expanded to accommodate the quantitative change in the units within the process.
- Added ‘Factory Categories’ – This allows modeling factory-level operational costs such as Tool Utilities or Facility Operation & Maintenance. This feature also serves as an improved method of modeling expenditures/cash in-flow at the enterprise level and replaces the Enterprise Revenue and Expenditures feature in v3.5 and prior releases. Multiple category records can be established in a model with each having an assigned category type.
Editable User Interface (UI)
- Redesigned Top Toolbar – The top toolbar (button bar) has been redesigned to include access to more forms, the option to include caption text in the buttons, the ability to optionally enlarge the image size in the buttons, and the ability to remove items by right clicking over a button the toolbar. In addition, the ability to edit the configuration of the toolbar buttons has been enhanced via a newly re-designed top toolbar edit form.
- Redesigned Report Panel – The report panel now includes access to chart output, more options for report output, and the ability to remove items by right clicking over the button in the panel. In addition, the ability to edit the button configuration has been enhanced via a newly re-designed form for editing the report panel.
- Improved Item Configuration for the Top Toolbar and Report Panel – The revised configuration forms allow adding, removing, and sorting of the buttons in the top toolbar and the report panel. These forms now allow drag and drop functionality for editing the buttons/separators appearing in the toolbar or panel. Also, with the form open, the user has the ability to directly move the buttons left or right on the top toolbar by dragging and dropping to another location, and moving the buttons up or down on the report panel.
New Chart Types
- Tool Group Utilization – A new bar chart shows manufacturing utilization for potentially all tool groups in a model for one specified period of time. Note a chart with this name was available in previous releases of Factory Commander® (v3.5 and prior). This chart is now called ‘Top 10 Tool Group Utilization’, and it limits the chart selection to only the 10 highest utilized tool groups for a series of time periods.
- Tool Count Over Time – A line chart showing the tool count over the modeling time frame for designated tool groups and time periods. Specific tool groups can be selected for inclusion in the chart.
- Tool Group Cost – A bar chart showing total cost by tool groups over a selected range of quarters or years. Specific tool groups can be selected for inclusion in the chart.
- Equipment Category Cost – A bar chart showing total cost by category of equipment over a selected range of quarters or years. Specific equipment categories can be selected for inclusion in the chart.
Improved Administrative Functions
- Enhanced Message Dialogs – The message dialog forms in the program relating to information, queries, and warnings have an enhanced design. This includes new banners in the dialogs, new icons, and more relevant button captions.
- MS Excel Automation Feature – Added a feature to initiate the MS Excel Automation functionality when needed, as opposed to always at program launch. When unchecked, this feature causes the initialization of the Excel automation engine to occur only when needed (i.e., just prior to running an import or export routine).
- Reduced Program Launch Time – The time to launch the Factory Commander® program has been significantly reduced. A large portion of this time reduction is due to the new option allowing MS Excel Automation to only be initiated when needed for import or export.
- Added Chinese and Korean Languages – The Chinese Simplified and Korean languages have been added as an option for the program’s interface. These languages are accessible via Language drop-down on the Program Settings tab. Either of these languages, as well as any other eastern language, requires either a native Chinese/Korean OS version, or for the operating system to be run with by changing the System Local to Chinese (Simplified or Traditional) or Korean.
With more than 4,000 users worldwide, Wright Williams & Kelly, Inc. is the largest privately held operational cost management software and consulting company serving technology-dependent and technology-driven organizations. WWK maintains long-term relationships with prominent industry resources and national labs and universities. Its client base includes nearly all of the top 20 semiconductor manufacturers and equipment and materials suppliers as well as leaders in photovoltaics (#PV), solid state lighting/light emitting diodes (#SSL #LED), nanotechnology, micro electro-mechanical systems (#MEMS), thin film record heads, magnetic media, flat panel displays (#FPD), and healthcare.
WWK’s Cloud-based, Software as a Service (SaaS) product line includes TWO COOL® for detailed process step level cost of ownership (#COO #TCO) and overall equipment efficiency (#OEE), PRO COOL® for process flow and test cell costing, Factory Commander® for full facility capacity analysis and activity-based costing, Factory Explorer® for cycle time reduction and WIP planning, and TCOe™ for energy production project costs (cost/kilowatt-hour).
Call today for more information from Wright Williams & Kelly, Inc. Providing software solutions for productivity measurement and enhancement since 1991.
