# CoreForge Factory ### Introducing The CoreForge Factory CoreForge is a fictional manufacturing plant used throughout the Kanoa MES training course. As you work through the lessons, you'll configure its equipment and materials, connect production data, schedule work, record quality checks, trace material, manage maintenance, and control spare-parts inventory. CoreForge is a training scenario, not a fixed industry template. Its purpose is to give you a consistent manufacturing environment in which to learn how Kanoa MES features fit together. The asset names, items, and processes used in the exercises are the source of truth for the training; avoid assuming that CoreForge has equipment or process steps that have not been introduced in the course. The training model uses aluminum raw materials and coating ingredients. Material moves through a series of manufacturing and handling assets, including: - **Machine 1** The machining asset used in the Operations, Maintenance, and related exercises. - **Mixer 1** An asset involved in preparing material for the coating process. - **Spray Line 1** The coating asset used in process monitoring and statistical process control exercises. - **QA Station** A quality-related asset in the material flow. - **Auto Pack 1** The automated packing asset at the end of the traceability example. The Trace course demonstrates genealogy from raw aluminum through processing to a shipped package. The Quality course uses a range of scenarios rather than one inspection at a single point: receiving inspection, machining first-article inspection, coating-line SPC, cleanliness checks, and offline laboratory inspection. These examples are designed to demonstrate different MES patterns. They should not be interpreted as a complete engineering process specification for a real factory. *** ### Process Overview Process Flow The training examples can be understood as a manufacturing flow with material receipt, processing, quality verification, and packing. 1. **Receive and identify material.** Raw aluminum and coating ingredients enter the plant. Material identity and inspection status matter before material is used. 2. **Machine components.** Machine 1 represents a production asset where work is executed and equipment performance is tracked. The first-article inspection example demonstrates how quality checks can be associated with machining and product context. 3. **Prepare coating material.** Mixer 1 is part of the material flow associated with the coating process. 4. **Apply coating.** Spray Line 1 is used in the coating-line SPC example. Process values can be collected and analyzed to identify variation. 5. **Verify quality.** Quality checks may be triggered by a schedule or production condition, entered by an operator, collected from tags, calculated, or routed for sign-off, depending on the exercise. 6. **Pack and ship.** Auto Pack 1 is the final asset in the Trace course's example material route. Lot operations record how material is moved or transformed, allowing learners to reconstruct genealogy and ask what went into a package or where material went. This overview is intentionally simplified. Follow the individual lessons and the supplied asset and item files for the exact configuration and sequence used in each exercise. *** The training is organized around the Kanoa solutions, each of which adds a different capability to the same plant model. ### Kanoa OPS: Establish The Operational Foundation Kanoa Ops is where the plant becomes a working MES model. You configure the asset hierarchy, define items and their relationships to production assets, set expected production rates, configure modes and states, connect simulated tag data, and start a production run. You then build on that foundation by configuring shifts and production orders, scheduling operations, integrating with an ERP simulator, managing users and permissions, customizing navigation, building dashboards, and analyzing production events, downtime, performance reasons, process values, and operator effectiveness. The central question is: **What was supposed to happen, what actually happened, and how did the equipment perform?** ### Kanoa Quality: Define And Execute Quality Checks Quality training uses CoreForge to build check sheets for several situations: - **Cleanliness Check** --- the basic check-sheet workflow. - **Receiving Inspection** --- incoming material checks and validated data entry. - **Machining - First Article Inspection** --- item-specific dimensional checks, tolerances, multiple measurements, and production-condition triggers. - **Coating SPC Checks** --- tag-driven process data, timed checks, and statistical process control. - **Offline Lab Inspection** --- grouped checks, calculated values, sign-off, and failure actions. These exercises show how quality requirements can be defined, dispatched, performed, reviewed, and analyzed in the context of the plant's assets and items. The central question is: **Were the required checks completed, and what do the results tell us about the product or process?** ### Kanoa Trace: Follow Material Through The Plant From Raw Materials To Finsihed Goods Trace training builds a lot genealogy from raw aluminum to a shipped package. Learners use lot operations and events to represent receipts, transfers, processing, and transformations. They then examine how material identity, quantity, state, and location change as material moves through the process. The central questions are: **What went into this lot or package? Where did this material go?** ### Kanoa Maintenance: Keep Equipment Available Maintenance training focuses on Machine 1. Learners configure maintenance information and a technician, define a preventive-maintenance procedure, create and complete a repair work order, and then configure recurring and run-hour-based maintenance. They also review maintenance analytics, backlog, and labor hours. The central question is: **What maintenance work is required, what has been done, and how well is the team keeping up?** ### Kanoa Inventory: Manage The Consummables and Parts That Keep Equipment Running Inventory training covers the spare parts and consumables needed to maintain CoreForge's equipment. Learners create a parts catalog, configure storeroom locations and stocking policies, record stock transactions, and define bills of materials for equipment. One exercise builds on the coolant-leak work order created in Maintenance training. The central question is: **Do we have the right part, in the right location, when maintenance needs it?** *** ## One Plant, Connected Information The key idea behind the training is that these are not five unrelated applications. - Ops supplies the shared asset, item, production, shift, and event context. - Quality connects inspection requirements and results to the manufacturing environment. - Trace records material movement and transformations so genealogy can be reconstructed. - Maintenance manages work against the same equipment model and can use production data, such as run hours and counts, to help trigger maintenance. - Inventory tracks the parts and stock transactions that support maintenance and equipment operation. Together, these capabilities help make plant information more consistent and useful. A production event can explain an interruption; a quality check can capture a measurement; a trace record can show where material went; a maintenance work order can document a repair; and an inventory transaction can record the part issued to complete that repair. *** ## How To Approach The Exercises Treat CoreForge as a plant you're implementing for a customer. Before configuring a feature, ask: - What real-world thing does this represent: an asset, item, production order, lot, check, work order, or inventory part? - Who needs to use it, and what action are they trying to perform? What data must be recorded, and where does that data come from? - Which other part of the plant or MES needs this information? - How could an operator, supervisor, quality technician, or maintenance technician use the result to make a better decision? Work through the hands-on steps in order. Later exercises rely on assets, items, tags, and other configuration created earlier. If a lesson provides import files or a supplied CoreForge model, use those resources to ensure your gateway matches the expected training setup. The goal is not just to make each screen work. It is to understand how Kanoa MES connects equipment, production, quality, traceability, maintenance, and inventory into a coherent manufacturing solution.