Cannot choose our UR5e pattern while the manual exception keeps growing

I've done one with dispatch and the manual remainder uses the same operator who would refill the robot station, so the two jobs overlap rather than replace each other

That doesn't necessarily kill it. Could you group the stable orders and leave the mixed ones on the existing bench? I'd compare that before trying to make one cell swallow every order type.

Theo's split might work, but David, how many of the stable orders are actually released together? A schedule can look wonderfully regular after somebody has rearranged the past to suit it.

I like the split idea. Didn't mean my paper walk-through had to use the most awkward order as the whole business case, just wanted the extra work visible.

And don't move promised dispatch times to make a tidier robot queue.

Anika, I meant use the order groups they actually have, not change promises. On our packing work the stable repeat job was worth isolating. The mixed one wasn't. Different answers in the same room, which annoyed the people wanting one headline.

Ada, not many are released together; the order list I first used was sorted by carton type rather than release order, so it made that split look easier than it is

That's the sheet I'd fix first.

I have restored release order and kept the dispatch cutoffs; the stable groups are smaller now, and the operator still moves between refilling and finishing mixed pallets

Thank you for checking that. You can still ask whether a modest stable workload justifies the equipment, but it deserves to be costed as that workload rather than the much larger sorted list.

Would a different tool make the original layer useful enough to change the answer, or is staffing now the bigger problem?

Tooling has priced an alternative for comparison, Luca, but even giving it the original layer count doesn't remove the split staffing on our actual release sequence, and that's where most of our hoped-for saving went

Then I wouldn't keep redesigning fingers to avoid saying the workload is wrong for this proposal. My split suggestion only helps if the split leaves a worthwhile job. Sounds like yours doesn't, at least with the orders you can actually schedule.

Can you shelve it without buying tooling?

Yes, we're still at proposal stage, and the team has decided not to buy this pallet cell; we'll keep the existing packing route and revisit only if the repeat workload changes, rather than budget for orders we wish arrived together

Fair enough. Useful to hear a no-buy result too, especially before a tool order makes everyone determined to continue.

Thanks for the paper walk-through, Luca, it gave dispatch something concrete to disagree with, and Theo's stable-order idea was worth testing even though our real release order ruled it out