The heuristic is used as part of a repair-based planning process consisting of the Heuristic, Capacity Leveling, and Deployment. The Heuristic processes each planning location sequentially and determines sourcing requirements. The Heuristic processing lumps all requirements for a given material in the location into one requirement for the period. The Heuristic run determines valid sources and quantity based on pre-defined percentages for each source (quota arrangements), or procurement priorities for transportation lanes (see Source Determination). Requirements are then passed through the supply chain to calculate a plan. This plan is not necessarily feasible however. The planner can then use capacity leveling to adjust the plan and formulate a feasible plan.

The key figures that the Heuristic is based on, and the planning period are determined by the Planning Book. Macros can also be used to define how you want to calculate general key figures like Total Demand and Warehouse Stock, or product-specific key figures like Safety Stock, Reorder Points and Target Stock Levels (for more information see Advanced Macros and SNP Functions.

1. Perform an Heuristic run.
2. Level capacity.
3. Run deployment.
4. Run TLB.

• Valid transportation lanes
• Lead times
• Quota arrangements or procurement priorities
• Calendars
• Lot size rules
• Scrap
• Component availability
• PPMs
• Location-specific products
• Supply Network Planning demand profile
• Supply Network Planning supply profile
• Demand profile

• The Heuristic run considers all demand for a given product/location combination within one bucket as one demand.
• The initial solution produced by the Heuristic run may not be feasible because the system assumes capacity is infinite. The planner must then adjust the plan by leveling resource capacity.
• After the Heuristic run, the planner checks transportation, handling, storage, and production resource capacity consumption, then levels capacity.
• The planner levels capacity only in one location at a time.
• The result of the Heuristic run does not include pegging of orders back to the original individual demand because the demands are bucketed.