Gantt

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Overview

The Gantt page holds your factory’s Gantt documents: editable timelines of work placed on rows. A row can be a machine, a crew, a work center or a project phase. Each bar is an item (a job or task) with a start, an end, a completion percentage and a color. Dependencies keep work in order, and the page flags double-bookings and shows the critical path. You and Dexter can both edit the same document.

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Creating a Gantt

Open Gantt in the sidebar. It opens the document you last viewed; if the factory has none yet, click New Gantt. In Create a Gantt, enter a Name and pick what to Start with:

• Blank: an empty timeline.
• Project plan: phase rows with tasks, dependencies and milestones.
• Resource schedule: an Unassigned row plus two exclusive machine rows, with one job split between Unassigned and a machine.

Starter content is ordinary rows and bars; change or delete any of it. Use the document picker at the top of the page to switch between Gantts, rename one or delete one. To have Dexter build it, describe the schedule in chat: the resources, the jobs, how long each takes, and what has to happen before what. Dexter asks when the structure or an ordering choice is unclear, and replies with a link that opens the Gantt.

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Rows and Exclusive Lanes

Rows can nest: add child rows under a parent (for example, machines under a work center) and collapse the parent to see one summary bar with its combined completion. Drag rows in the outline to reorder or move them. Every row has an overlap policy:

• Allow overlapping: overlapping bars stack in sub-lanes. Use it for a team or phase that runs work in parallel.
• Mark as exclusive lane: the row can do one thing at a time, like a single machine. Overlapping bars are flagged as double-bookings (“double-books an exclusive lane”).

A double-booking is a warning, not a block: the edit saves and the conflict stays highlighted until you move one of the bars. To set the policy for many rows at once, use Row overlap policies in Document settings.

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Dependencies and Lag

Drag from a port at the start or end of one bar to a port on another, or use Add link from finish / Add link from start from the right-click menu. Each dependency has an Enforcement:

• Not enforced: shows the relationship only.
• Lag at least (minimum lag): when you move the upstream bar, ProDex pushes the downstream bar, and anything after it, later to keep the gap. A badge tells you how many dependent bars shifted.
• Lag at most (maximum lag): an edit that would leave the downstream bar too late is refused rather than moved.
• Window: both limits together.

Lag can be negative, to let work overlap. A refused edit names the blocking dependency and the nearest time that would fit. Dependency loops and changes that would cascade too far are refused too.

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Working Time

Open Gantt options, then Working time, and turn on Shade non-working time. Add weekly rules that mark hours as Working or Closed, such as weekends closed and Saturday morning reopened for overtime. Later rules override earlier ones where they overlap. For one-off closures such as a holiday or a maintenance window, ask Dexter to add a date rule; you can then reorder or remove it in the same dialog. Working time is shading only: it doesn’t stop or move a bar in closed hours, and durations and lag stay elapsed time. If a job only counts working hours, split it around the closure.

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Critical Path

Choose Find critical path in Gantt options. ProDex highlights the chain of bars and dependencies that determines when the whole schedule finishes, based on where everything sits now, and refreshes it as you edit. It does not reschedule anything. Ask Dexter if you want the slack on a particular job.

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Editing by Hand

• Drag a bar to move it in time or onto another row; drag its edges to resize; drag the completion handle to set progress. Hold Alt while dragging to snap to the time axis.
• Right-click a bar, row or empty timeline for Split here, Split at…, Convert to milestone, merge, delete and more. A split job stays one item across its pieces.
• Click a bar to open its details on the side: row, start, finish, duration, completion, color, predecessors and successors, all editable in place.
• Undo and redo with the header buttons or Cmd/Ctrl+Z and Shift+Cmd/Ctrl+Z (or Cmd/Ctrl+Y). Undo covers your last twenty edits in this browser tab, but not an edit the schedule has since changed around (for example after Dexter edited it), and not document settings or working time.

Document settings sets the Row term and Item term (so the page says “machine” and “job”) and Color labels for the legend. Gantt options also holds the time zone, the Timeline range you can schedule in, and row density.

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Table View

Switch from Timeline to Table for one row per bar: Item, Row, Start, End, Duration, Completion, Milestone and Color. Every column sorts, and cells edit the same way as the details panel, which is often faster for typing exact times.

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Working with Dexter

Dexter reads and edits the same documents you do, through the same rules: dependencies push or refuse edits for Dexter just as for you, and exclusive rows flag Dexter’s double-bookings. Useful requests:

• “Build a Gantt of next week’s jobs on the three presses from this order list.”
• “Move job 4471 to Press 2 and tell me what shifts.”
• “How much slack does the paint job have?”

Gantt documents are included in factory exports and factory shares.

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What It Doesn’t Do

• No automatic sequencing. Nothing optimizes job order or machine assignment, and there are no changeover times or changeover matrices. You or Dexter decide the order.
• No schedule KPIs. The page doesn’t report makespan, utilization or changeover share.
• No capacity or calendar enforcement. Double-bookings and work in closed hours are shown, not prevented.
• No link to planning. A production plan is not turned into Gantt jobs, and nothing keeps the two in sync.

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Gantt and Production Planning

Production Planning decides how much to make in each period against demand, inventory and capacity. A Gantt lays out the individual jobs on specific machines at specific times. To go from one to the other, bring the plan’s quantities into a Gantt yourself or ask Dexter to draft one from a scenario’s results, then refine it by hand.