• Determine the resources and dates for processing operations, taking resource and product availability into consideration.
• Support the scheduler when scheduling resources, that is, when creating an optimal processing sequence for operations

The basic detailed scheduling activities are

• Scheduling, that is, dispatching operations to resources at a specific time
• Rescheduling, that is, dispatching already scheduled operations to a different time or to different resources
• Deallocating, that is, removing scheduled operations from the resource schedule

The system can trigger detailed scheduling activities automatically, for example, the system automatically schedules the order operations when creating an order. You can also start detailed scheduling activities in the production planning run or in the detailed scheduling planning board specifically for selected operations or orders. Here, the system automatically carries out detailed scheduling activities for affected dependent objects, if necessary. For more information, see detailed scheduling activities.

Alongside the desired scheduling date, the basis of detailed scheduling for an order, are the capacity requirements of the activities. You control which constraints, rules, and parameters the system must consider during scheduling using the settings and data in the following objects:

• Resource
• Production process model (PPM) or iPPE plan
• Strategy profile

The starting point for scheduling or rescheduling is the desired start or end date of the orders or operations. If, for example, you create an order, the availability date of the main order product defines the desired end date. If you reschedule an operation in the detailed scheduling planning board using Drag&Drop for example, the desired date is the date on which you "let go" of the operation.

Starting from the desired date, the system searches for a scheduling date in the set planning direction for the last activity (planning direction backwards) or for the first activity (planning direction forwards) of an operation or an order. If the first activity is scheduled, it is then the turn of the next activity in the sequence, and so on until all activities of the operation or order are scheduled or rescheduled. The system cannot schedule or reschedule an activity before or after the application dependent earliest possible or latest possible date.

The dates on which an activity can be scheduled or rescheduled on a resource depends on the capacity requirement of the activity and on the working times and capacity of the resource. In general, you can only process activities during the working times of a resource, and you can therefore only schedule these activities in regular working times. In working times you can schedule activities finitely or infinitely, that is, with or without consideration of the resource capacity and the existing resource load. If necessary, you can also schedule activities during non-working times, for example, breaks. Scheduling during downtime - caused for example by a machine breakdown or by maintenance - is not possible. In order to schedule activities that are longer than related working times, it must be possible to interrupt them with non-working times.

You can enter several alternative sets of resources ( modes) at which the activity can be processed, in the PPM for the activity. The mode selection can be automatic or manual, as in the detailed scheduling planning board.

Time relationships that control which minimum and maximum time intervals activities can have can exist between activities. The system always considers the obligatory end-start relationships between activities for an operation. For example, when you have entered a minimum interval of one hour between two activities in an operation, the system cannot schedule or reschedule these activities in such a way that the time interval is less than one hour. You define in the detailed scheduling strategy if the system should consider time relationships between activities from different operations when scheduling.

Pegging relationships can exist between the activities of different orders. An activity therefore produces a material that then undergoes further processing by an activity of another order. The pegging relationship requires - with a certain time tolerance - that the material be available at the right time, that is, that the supplying activity is scheduled at the appropriate time. You define in the detailed scheduling strategy if the system should consider pegging relationships during scheduling.

When you schedule or reschedule an operation or an order, other operations and orders are affected, for example, due to time relationships or pegging relationships. In order that the schedule remains consistent, subsequent rescheduling is often required. This is performed automatically by the system. For more information, see scheduling dependent objects.

The duration of the setup activity for an operation may depend on the setup status of the resource at the time of scheduling; that is, it depends on which operation was processed prior to this at the resource. For set-up activities on single resources, the system can automatically adjust the setup time during detailed scheduling.

Several activities can be processed simultaneously on a multi-resource. How many can be processed depends on the resource consumption of the activities and on the capacity of the multi-resource. The system can synchronize the start times of the activities during detailed scheduling if the duration of the activities and one further characteristic of the activities match.

In block planning you can define blocks for resources, that is, time periods that are reserved for production of products with particular characteristics. The system automatically considers this during detailed scheduling and only schedules or reschedules activities into the blocks with the corresponding characteristics.

In complex scheduling situations in which many constraints and dependencies must be considered, the duration of scheduling can be very long. The system is set internally to terminate scheduling after 10 minutes. You can set another maximum scheduling duration. in the detailed scheduling strategy.

In the case of scheduling problems, for example, resource overload, the system can create alerts that are displayed in the Alert Monitor. You must use a corresponding PP/DS alert profile for this purpose.