Understanding Advanced MRP
Legacy ERP systems used to run overnight to complete the MRP calculations, resulting in a printed report that was referred to all day long, and had to have everything on it to answer all of the day’s questions. DEACOM’s MRP runs in seconds, so the results can be refreshed as often in the day as needed. Rather than having a single universal output, MRP users can have a variety of specific requests, each with a corresponding pre-filtered version of MRP that provides those specific answers. Of course, the pre-filters can be saved, so that they can be used when the question that each one answers is being asked.
Configuration
Refer to the Configuring Options for Use in MRP page for setup information.
Process
Reviewing MRP filters and options
What MRP pre-filter fields are especially useful?
- Quantity In - This field provides an additional filtering layer when running MRP reports and can be used with a variety of other filter settings, most notably the "Display" field. Two examples of how this filter could be used with the "Display" field are:
- "Suggestions > -0-" with "Supply (+)" would effectively be a "move up" or "pull" report.
- "Total Net > Max Qty" with "Supply (+)" would effectively be a "move back" or "push" report.
- Quantity Not In - The same options are available as in the “Quantity In” filter, but with the opposite functionality of showing only items that don’t have a quantity in the selected filter. Two examples of how this filter could be used with the "Display" field above are:
- "Suggestions > -0-" with "Purchases (+)" would effectively be a create PO report.
- "Suggestions > -0-" with "Jobs (+)" would effectively be a create job report.
- QC Aggregate - This field was added to allow users the option of adding QC values at the start of the bucket type to support different planning scenarios. When running a bucket type of "Days", this field is not evaluated by the system.
- Suggestions - If using a display of "Suggested <> 0", "Suggestions" should be set to "Include", otherwise relevant inventory suggestions may be excluded from the report.
- Indirect Requirements - Option to include (default) or exclude indirect requirements when generating MRP reports. Indirect requirements are what give you the ability to react to top level sales order and start purchasing raw materials without having jobs launched and on the schedule. When doing a short-term MRP within the time frame of the firm production schedule, the exclude option can be used to not see demand for jobs that have not been created.
- Indirect Requirements After - Rather than excluding indirect requirements completely, using the previous filter, this provides the ability to start considering indirect requirements when they are X days in the future. Useful in Purchasing MRP when you know that the next 10 days of the production schedule are “firm” and you don’t want to react to indirect requirements, for which jobs haven’t been scheduled, but you are doing a 30-day MRP and want to consider indirects outside of the firm production schedule.
- Indirect Job Reqs - Options to treat indirect job requirements as either indirect requirements (default) or job requirements when generating MRP reports. With the “indirects” option selected, job indirect requirements are tallied together with the sales indirect requirements in the Indirects column. When the “job requirements” option is selected, job indirect requirements are added to the Job Requirements column instead, distinguishing sales indirects, for which no job has been launched, from job indirects, where a finished good job is present but lower level jobs aren’t.
- Issued - Options to include (default) or exclude issued inventory. Excluding issued inventory will not exclude job requirements and will result in suggestions that may be exaggerated.
- Reserved - Options to include (default) or exclude reserved inventory. Excluding reserved inventory will not exclude sales order requirements and will result in suggestions that may be exaggerated.
- Direct Staging - Options to include staged inventory (pre-staged or final staged) in the +Onhand bucket or instead as +Reserved or +Issued. Useful in situations where customers pre-stage and also use staging iterations over several days, and prefer better visibility to staged material which is already used/allocated and not truly on hand.
What Item Master MRP fields are especially important?
- Lead Time - Total time, in calendar days, required to manufacture or receive an item. For jobs launched from MRP, this is the number of days between the planned start date and the planned finish date.
- QC Lead Time - QC testing lead time in calendar days, not shop days. Estimated amount of time QC will take after the product is finished off a job or received on a purchase order. For jobs launched from MRP, it is the difference between the due date and the date of the demand (sales order due to ship, for example). For purchase orders created from MRP, QC Lead time and Safety days, subtracted from the demand date (job planned start, for example) is the PO Due to Dock date.
- Safety Days - Used to provide a safety margin in calculating job and purchase order dates to account for uncertainty. For jobs launched from MRP, it is the difference between the planned finish date and the due date. For purchase orders created from MRP, QC Lead time and Safety days, subtracted from the demand date (job planned start, for example) is the PO Due to Dock date
- Date calculations - For a summary of the behavior of Lead Time, Safety Days, and QC Lead Time for a variety of combinations, showing the resulting suggestion dates, job and purchase order dates, refer to the MRP tab description in the Item Master page.
- Suggestion Date (job or PO) = demand date subtract lead time, safety days, and QC lead time
- Planned Start (job) = demand date subtract lead time, safety days, and QC lead time
- Planned Finish (job) = demand date subtract safety days and QC lead time
- Due Date (job) = demand date subtract QC lead time
- Due to Dock (PO) = demand date subtract safety days and QC lead time
Using MRP reports to identify when Jobs or Purchase Orders need to be rescheduled or cancelled
Time Phased MRP reports can be run to identify situations where Jobs and Purchase Orders should be rescheduled or cancelled based on incorrect finish/due dates or changes in demand. Reports can also be run to identify situations where inventory exists but no demand exists in the timeframe selected. The list below details the different scenarios and the chart below the list provides the necessary pre-filter field values to run these reports.
- Cancel (Kill) Jobs or Purchase Orders - necessary when Jobs or Purchase Orders exist to add supply but no demand currently exists.
- Move back (push) Jobs or Purchase Orders - identifies item quantities where the Job or Purchase Order is scheduled, or due in, before the quantities on the Job or Purchase Order are needed or the quantities are more than what is needed for the current demand. Modifying the finish or due dates and pushing them out into the future can free up an overloaded work center, allow materials to go to other, more critical jobs, and also present a better picture of the true requirements.
- Move up (pull) Jobs of Purchase Orders - identifies item quantities where a Job or Purchase Order exists, however the Planned Finish date (for Jobs), or the Due date (for Purchase Orders) is after the date the material is needed or the quantity is less then the total demand. Modifying the finish or due dates and setting them earlier can solve potential delays and shortages.
- Inventory with zero usage - identifies item quantities that are available in inventory, or scheduled to be purchased or manufactured, but there is no demand in the timeframe for the executed Time Phased MRP report.
MRP Report Pre-Filter Settings - Production
|
|
Push |
Pull |
Kill |
Inventory with 0 usage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Report Type | Time Phased | Time Phased | Time Phased | Time Phased |
| Display | Total Net >Max Qty | Suggested >0 | All | Total Net >Max Qty |
| Quantity In | Jobs + | Jobs + | Jobs + | All |
| Quantity Not In | Demand (-) | Demand (-) |
MRP Report Pre-Filter Settings - Purchasing
|
|
Push |
Pull |
Kill |
Inventory with 0 usage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Report Type | Time Phased | Time Phased | Time Phased | Time Phased |
| Display | Total Net >Max Qty | Suggested >0 | All | Total Net >Max Qty |
| Quantity In | Purchases + | Purchases + | Purchases + | All |
| Quantity Not In | Demand (-) | Demand (-) |
Using Facility Part Cross References in MRP runs
When a single Facility is used for an MRP run, the information from the Facility Part Cross References is used in that run, when present. Items that are flagged to “Require Facility Entry” and do not have a cross reference present for the facility in the MRP pre-filter will not show in the MRP results.
When a Facility Group is used for an MRP run, there is not information specific to the Facility Group that can be used directly. Purchase order and job minimums, maximums, and increments can not be summed and would continue to come from the Item Master.
Items that are flagged to “Require Facility Entry” and do not have a cross reference present for any of the Facilities in the Facility Group chosen in the MRP pre-filter will not show in the MRP results.
Creating Inter-Company Transfers in MRP
The most common reason for running Facility-specific MRP is to make sure there is enough inventory in each Facility to satisfy the Jobs and Sales Orders that are scheduled for that Facility. While production Jobs and Purchase Orders could be created, the same as in non-Facility MRP, another option is to create an Inter-Company Transfer to request that material be moved from another of the company’s Facilities. This is very common when there are separate production/warehouse and retail Facilities, and the stores need to request transfer of material that is produced and stored in the production Facility. It is also possible in a company with multiple production warehouses and warehouse A is short of inventory that is present, and not spoken for, in warehouse B.
What are the requirements?
Creating an Inter-Company Transfer from MRP has two requirements:
- Have a Ship-to Company with the Destination Facility as the Receiving Facility for the Inter-Company Transfer (as required by all Inter-Company Transfers).
- Run MRP, filtered by the destination Facility.
What is the process?
After that, the process is the same as creating Jobs or Purchase Orders:
- Mark the items that should be included on the Inter-Company Transfer as “Selected”.
- Click the “Create IC Xfer” or "Auto IC Xfer" buttons.
A couple notes regarding Inter-Company Transfers in MRP:
- Items no longer have to be flagged as “Saleable” to be put on Inter-Company Transfers. If non-saleable items are included on a transfer, and then it is converted to a Sales Order, a message will inform the user that the non-saleable items are going to be deleted.
- If items are flagged to “Require Facility Entry”, the item must have Facility Part Cross References for both source and destination Facilities in order to be placed on the transfer order.
-
Planning QC during MRP
Sometimes, in manufacturing, there are multiple customers for the same item, but they have different specifications for that item. The differences can range from minor, where a customer is “cherry-picking” your inventory by having tighter specs than you have in general, to major, where the differences are so significant that you want to have two different Item Masters. MRP QC Planning provides a middle process where you want to produce an item and execute customer-specific QC Tests before shipping it out the door. The process even provides for the situation where you produce the same item for two different customers at the same time, but apply different Quality Control Groups to the results, while reserving product to the Sales Orders so that you are sure that each customer gets the properly tested version of the product. The feature easily allows companies to determine if customer item QC specs which are nearly the same could be grouped on the same production job, or if separate jobs would be needed. For more information, refer to the Planning QC in MRP page.
Using the Master Production Calendar with MRP
Configuring the necessary items
- Resources - In order for jobs to be scheduled on the Master Production Calendar (MPC), a Facility, Work Center, and Shop Area need to be setup. The Facility will act as the Manufacturing Plant in which the Job is being processed; the Work Center is the specific machine; and the Shop Area represents a collection of similar machines or Work Centers. When new Work Centers are created, a Shop Area must be identified on the Work Center master record. One Facility may contain several Shop Areas. Process information for configuring these resources is available via Setting up a Warehouse and Managing Assets.
- Resource Availability - Both Availability schedules and Availability Exceptions are needed in order to define what times the Work Centers are available for Routings to be scheduled. Process information for configuring these items is available via Configuring Availability and Availability Exceptions.
- Shop Schedule Basics can be defined for all Facilities, a specific Facility, a specific Shop Area, or a specific Work Center. Each day is defined with the hours that the resource type is available by specifying the start and end times. Multiple Shop Schedules may be created, allowing companies to set a schedule for all Facilities and exceptions based on specific Shop Areas or Work Centers.
- Availability Exceptions are used to set a resource type (all Facilities, a specific Facility, a specific Shop Area, or a specific Work Center) as not available for a period of time that it would normally have been available, or available for a period of time when it is not otherwise available. Examples of not available times would be holidays or scheduled maintenance. An example of available times would be Saturday mornings for a given period, such as a busy season. Availability Exceptions can be defined via Production > Maintenance > Availability Exceptions.
- Maintenance Tasks and Availability - The Work Center record contains a Maintenance tab where maintenance tasks associated with the selected Work Center can be specified. Companies have the option to indicate an "Unavailability Level" for individual tasks. When maintenance jobs are scheduled for maintenance tasks that contain unavailability levels besides "None", the MPC will black out the appropriate Work Centers, Shop Areas, and Facilities to indicate that they will be unavailable while maintenance is performed. Maintenance jobs will black out time on the calendar in the same time-span that they are set to. For blackout periods, the caption on this black area on the calendar will say "Mtc.+" the last five digits of the Job number and the maintenance task name on the second line. Drilling into this black area will take the user to the view detail form for the Job. Process information for configuring tasks and availability is available via Creating Maintenance Tasks.
- Production Options - The Production > Options > Scheduling tab has a number of fields that are used to configure the look and feel of the MPC, including "Routing Field 1-5", "Pixels Per Hour", "Routing Sort 1-3", "Schedule By", "Optim. Schedule By", and "Process Jobs Over Non-Maintenance Blackouts".
- Routings - A Routing in the Deacom system is a series of predefined processing steps, listed in order of sequence, necessary to complete a Part. Each Routing step indicates the Work Center, the Operation that will be performed, and the processing rate for the item in units per hour. Routings of the Jobs are displayed when viewing the MPC. Process information is available via Managing Routings and Configuring Operations, Routings, and Sequences for Production Jobs.
- Job Dates - There are fields on the Dates tab of the Job to support the MPC functionality, including "Schedule By", "Due", "Planned Start", "Planned Finish", and "Calc. Planned".
Configuring the display and functionality
- Calendar pre-filter - The Calendar Selection Pre-Filter has many fields available to return the desired results.
- Calendar display - When running the MPC, the Work Centers (based on pre-filter settings) will display vertically on the left side of the form and in numeric-alpha order. The days and hours will display running across the top of the form, starting from the left and moving to the right. The user can navigate to other dates/times by clicking and dragging in an empty space on the form. All unscheduled Jobs display in the bottom portion of the calendar’s grid. All blackout times, whether from Shop Schedule Basics, Availability Exceptions, or Maintenance, will display as black blocks of time with white text. Shop Schedule Basics display “Schedule”, Availability Exceptions display “Exception”, and Maintenance tasks display “Mtc. (Job Number and Description)”. The following functionality is available to split Jobs based the unavailability times set on the calendar:
- When a Job gets dragged before unavailable shop time, end of job will be split to next available time.
- When a Job gets dragged before blackout job (maintenance), end of job will be split around this unavailable slot.
- When a Job gets dragged onto open availability and there is not enough time in that day, job splits to the next day.
- When saving and reopening calendar, jobs will appear correctly split as they did before calendar was closed.
- Routing Sequence Display - After jobs have been scheduled on the MPC, the calendar displays each routing and the width of it is how long it takes to perform the process on that Work Center. Routings can be scheduled within a single day, across multiple days, or across blackouts. Each Routing is split into two different color indicators (top row and bottom row). The top row indicates inventory availability and the bottom row indicates if it is finishing within the appropriate date range based on Lead Time, QC Lead Time, and Safety Days that are set on the Item Master.
- Routing Calendar Detail form - The routing calendar form shows the detail for each Routing sequence in the selected set. The line coloring of the report indicates the inventory availability for the Job. There are multiple ways to access the routing calendar detail form. The list below details the different access methods.
- Viewed for all jobs through the “Show full schedule” button on the calendar.
- Viewed for a specific work center by selecting, then double clicking a work center on the left side of the calendar.
- Viewed for a specific day by selecting, then double clicking a day on the top of the calendar.
- Viewed for a specific job by selecting, then double clicking any routing sequence from the calendar.
- Modifying the Schedule - The Master Production Schedule can be modified in several different ways. Routings can be dragged and dropped to new Work Centers and/or times for rescheduling purposes. The "Edit Data" button within the Calendar Detail form is another method to modifying the schedule for more precise data modifications. The Optimizing Wizard is another great tool that can help update wide ranges of the production schedule automatically based on selections made by the end user. It can be accessed by opening the MPC and clicking the "Optimize" button at the top of the form. The final method to modifying the Master Production Schedule is editing the Job itself, navigating to the Dates tab, and updating the "Planned Start" and "Planned Finish" dates manually, by earliest available, latest available, or not scheduled. Once a Schedule By option is selected, the end user must click the "Calc. Planned" button for the dates to update.
Sequencing Jobs and scheduling Changeovers
When sending a group of Jobs through a Work Center, there is always an efficient order for the Jobs to be run in. Whether for a coatings company mixing light colors in the morning and moving towards dark colors, or a food company starting the day with organic products with no allergens and moving towards non-organics with multiple allergens, the Jobs should be scheduled in the most efficient order.
DEACOM's scheduling sequences are used by the MPC's Optimizing Wizard to put Jobs in a pre-determined order, for most efficient processing and minimized cleaning. In addition, the changeover scheduler can be used to add the proper cleaning job to the schedule, because of the change in schedule sequences. More information on this topic can be found on the Configuring Operations, Routings, and Sequences for Production Jobs and Scheduling Production Jobs Using the Optimization Function pages.
Using the Planned On Hand Calendar with MRP
The Planned On Hand Calendar was designed for companies that will schedule Jobs and Sales Orders hourly and need to queue incoming orders prior to assigning them to the Planned On Hand Calendar based on shipping availability and Work Center capacity.
- Unavailability - The Planned On Hand Calendar uses the same logic as the MPC for blackouts. This means that Availability schedules, Availability Exceptions, and MRO Jobs with unavailability level all apply. The "Unavailability" field on the calendar pre-filter can be used to determine how downtime is displayed.
- On Hand Based On - Used to determine what the On Hand calculation is based on. This allows the user to schedule by start times but view the on hand as of when the transaction will finish. The "Initial On Hand" and "Final On Hand" columns support the On Hand Based On selections. When the report is generated, the "Starting On Hand" is calculated for each Part Number in the report as of the date that it first appears in the report. The on hand is then incremented/decremented based on the "On Hand Based On" field.
- Increment Minutes - Number of minutes for displayed timeline resolution, between 1 and 1440 (number of minutes in a day), with a default of 60.
- Job Finishes - Show (default) or hide Job finishes.
- Sales Shipments - Show (default) or hide Sales Order shipments.
The calendar grid will contain a record for every time slot in the date range, showing whether it is occupied or not. All transactions scheduled at midnight will be at the top. The goal of the report is to detect “out of order” situations like, for example, when a truck is scheduled to arrive an hour before a Job Routing is scheduled to be completed. There is a "Modify Info" button at the top of the form which allows users to modify the currently selected record (Sales Order or ob). Normal Sales Order or Job modification security settings apply to this button.
In addition, there are two buttons, "Modify" and "Add", on the top of the calendar. Clicking on either will display the Edit Planned On Hand form. Using that form, it is easy to reschedule the truck so that the Sales Order is leaving after the Job finishes, instead of before. Saving the form updates the calendar results, showing that the situation has been resolved.
Using schedule options
Routings increment the on hand quantity at the end of the last Routing per Job line, not per Job. This allows the on hand quantity to increment after all the Routings for a specific Job line are done. Similar to MRP and the other calendars, only active Jobs are displayed on the Planned On Hand Calendar.
In situations where users attempt to schedule a Job Routing during an unavailable time, the system will prompt the user that the Routing cannot be scheduled and the Job will be left unscheduled until users reschedule the Routing to an available time.
When updating the Routing planned start/finish date, the user will be prompted if they want to update the Job's "Due" date, if the "Order Date Change Prompt for Plan On Hand" flag is checked in the Inventory > Options > Scheduling tab. If the Job is a make to order header or line Job, the system will update the due dates both for the Job and the due dates on the Job lines.
Managing Work Center capacity
Managing capacity is an important aspect of production as it helps companies determine if they need to scale their operations up to handle work or scale back if resources are consistently going unused. In DEACOM, this is done in two main ways: using MRP and Capacity reporting. MRP is available to ensure materials are available for production and to ensure products are available for delivery to customers. The Work Center Capacity report exists within Job Reporting so that companies can easily evaluate if there are enough resources and capacity, given the current setup and forecasts, to complete all current Jobs.
The total time available within the Work Center is calculated using Availability, Availability Exceptions, and MRO blackouts. The “bottom level” Work Centers are used to drive the availability, or, if there is a Work Center with no children just that Work Center is used to drive availability. For example, if there is a Work Center called "Bottling Lines" and it has 10 children, "Bottling Line 1" through "Bottling Line 10", the children are used to drive the availability for the purpose of forecasting across all bottling lines at once. Bottling Lines shows on the report, with the availability as the sum of all of the children. If the children also have children, those grandchildren (so to speak) drive the availability. Additional information is available via Managing Production Capacity.
Indirect Requirements Prior to Report Date Range