More Advanced Messages - Job Number

Because MDC-Max is integrated with DNC-Max it stores the date and time that a program is sent to a machine and we can use this as the current program in reports.

Sometimes it is useful (and more accurate) to store a separate job number whenever a job is started (on a manual machine that has no DNC for example). You can do this by creating a separate MDC barcode for every job that will run on the machine to mean "Start Job + Job No.".

These messages are setup in the same way as before but with one addition - Extract value field.

Here is the setup when printing an individual barcode for each job:

Job Start setup. Individual barcodes for each job.

You would then need to print a single barcode for each job of the form MAXJS1234 where 1234 is the unique job number. The Trigger is MAXJS (the unique string scanned by the barcode reader), the Extract value is set to After trigger to make sure DNC-Max extracts the 1234 of the barcode after MAXJS. The message then generated is JOBSTART and DNC-Max will store anything after MAXJS (1234 in this case) in the MDC database as a separate field (Log Variable 1) which can then be used later on in reports.

So scanning MAXJS1234 will result in the JOBSTART message being generated and 1234 being stored with that message.

To include the job number extracted from the barcode in the system log, add the variable $MSGTEXT to the Log Text field, i.e. "Job Start: $MSGTEXT".

But with this configuration you will soon end up with pages of barcodes at the operator's workplace. It is better to create a single barcode to mean "Start New Job" and then scan a separate barcode (usually on the customer's paperwork) for the actual job.

If you want to scan customers own job numbers then use the following setup:

Job Start setup. Common job start barcode followed by individual job numbers.

The operator scans the barcode MAXJS and then has 10 seconds (you can set this to 3 seconds or 1 minute as well) to scan the actual job number from another sheet. The only difference in setup is the Extract value is set to Next line if received within 10s.

Sometimes the customer will have paperwork where the job name is made up from two barcodes. One is the Job or Part Number and the other is the Operation Number. In this case the operator would have to scan the MAXJS Start Job barcode then the Job Number then the Operation Number. MDC-Max can handle this by setting Extract value to Next two lines if received within 10s. MDC-Max appends the Op Number to Job Number and stores this in Log Variable 1. The individual Job Number and Op Number are stored in Log Variables 2 and 3 respectively.

Example extract values.

Please refer to Extraction of Barcode/DPRNT Messages to enable the extraction of "DPRNT" style messages.