How to Calculate Work Center calender

This is what happens in the video

In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, a work center’s available capacity comes from calendar entries that the system calculates. If you don’t recalculate the work center calendar, the calendar entries become outdated and your work center stops working as expected. The fix is to run the Calculate Work Center Calendar function for the relevant period.

You run the calculation from the Actions tab on the work center and define which period to calculate. Recalculating a period that already has entries simply updates the existing calendar entries, so you can run it again safely.

The available capacity per day is driven by the shop calendar code, which defines the shifts and working hours, combined with the capacity and efficiency values on the work center. For example, a capacity of 3 and efficiency of 100% gives 1,440 available minutes per day.

Why work centers stop working in Business Central

A work center’s capacity is defined by calendar entries that are calculated in the system. This means you have to calculate your calendar entries from time to time. A common support question we get from customers is that their work center “doesn’t work anymore.” In almost every case, the reason is the same: the calendar hasn’t been calculated.

How to calculate the work center calendar

You calculate the calendar directly from the work center. On the work center, go to the Actions tab and use the function Calculate Work Center Calendar. From there you define the period you want to calculate.

If you recalculate a period that you have already calculated, the system just modifies the existing calendar entries. So you don’t have to worry about creating duplicates or breaking anything by running it again. When you run it, the system calculates calendar entries per work center.

Shop calendar codes and shifts define the working hours

Be aware that you can have different shop calendar codes, which represent the shifts. The capacity can also differ for each work center. In a typical setup you might have two machine centers and three assembly departments, each with their own configuration.

If you open a machine center, you can see which shop calendar code it uses. In one example, the shop calendar is set up as a two-shift schedule, Monday to Friday. That definition lives in the shop calendar code.

You can navigate into the shop calendar and into the working days to define the starting and ending time. In the case of a CNC machine, it might be one long shift covering the whole period. You could also split the day into shifts, for example work shift code 1 from eight until four o’clock, and work shift code 2 from four o’clock until seven o’clock.

How capacity and efficiency affect available minutes

Once you have your working days and your capacity defined, and you calculate the work center, you also get the calendar. You can then navigate to the planning calendar and look at the work center calendar matrix, where you see all the calculated calendar entries per day, month, year, and so on.

The available capacity is driven by the capacity and efficiency values. In one example, an assembly department has 1,440 available minutes on a single day. That comes from a capacity of 3 and an efficiency of 100%. A machine department in the same setup has a calendar entry built from a capacity of 2 and an efficiency of 85%, which gives a different number of available minutes.

You need to define the capacity for each work center. That capacity is also used on the machine center that sits below the work center, and the machine center uses the same calendar code.

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