Heuristic for Multi-Resource Planning (Even) 

Purpose

You use the heuristic multi-resource planning (even) (/SAPAPO/REM_HEUR_TEMPLATE), if you produce several products in repetitive manufacturing from the same resources (lines) and prefer one specific resource because of costs, or other reasons.

This heuristic is deliberately kept simple and does not take into account parameters in the planning algorithm such as the planning time fence and the production horizon. Also, it does not provide for any splitting of lots.

Therefore, you should use this heuristic primarily as a template for programming heuristics with your own algorithm. Do not use it unchanged in your operative planning.

For further information on adjusting the heuristic, see Setting Up REM Heuristics and Create REM Heuristics with your own Algorithm .

Prerequisites

See Planning Heuristics in Repetitive Manufacturing (REM Heuristics) .

Process Flow

When using this heuristic, the system tries to distribute the planned orders across all the resources as evenly as possible. If there are no resources available for a period, the planned orders are moved to free resources in the previous period. If no free resources have been found for remaining requirements before the order start date, even in the previous periods, a planned order is not created, resulting in a shortage.

The procedure runs as follows:

  1. The system determines the load of all resources to be planned per period. The load is calculated from the firm operations that are assigned to the resources.
  2. The system looks in the resource with the least load for a lot, which could be produced on the resource, and checks whether the capacity of this lot fits in the current period.
  3. If it does, it makes a scheduling proposal for this lot and loads the resource. If not, it checks whether the lot could be produced in one of the previous periods.
  4. Lots that cannot be completely produced in any period, are not scheduled.