Primary Resource Assignment to Operations

Use

You use this function to determine the resource or the part of the production line that is used to carry out an operation and the subordinate phases.

As phases are subdivisions of an operation, the system automatically copies the primary resource of the operation to its phases. The primary resource is committed for the entire duration of the operation and its phases.

Integration

The following resource data can influence the way operations and phases are processed:

  • The standard value key with rules for maintenance that determine which standard values you can or must edit for the operation or phase

  • Formulas that you can use to calculate the dates and costs of the phases in scheduling, capacity requirements planning, and costing

  • Default values that help you to edit certain operation and phase data

If labor capacity has been assigned to the primary resource, you can enter the number of employees required for the phase in the general phase data. The system uses this number for the following evaluations:

  • The planning table of repetitive manufacturing uses this information to determine the maximum and minimum number of employees required for a planning period.

  • Using the POI interface, you can transfer the required number of employees to external planning tools.

Prerequisites

The master record of the resource you want to use as the primary resource has been created in the system. The resource meets the following requirements:

  • It belongs to the same plant as the master recipe.

  • It has been released for master recipes in its task list usage (see Customizing for Master Recipes).

Note Note

  • If you have assigned a resource network in the recipe header, the resource must also be contained in the resource network (see Resource Network Assignment to Recipes).

  • If you work with the Process Flow Scheduler (PFS), only use resources with one capacity category. The PFS only takes one capacity category per resource into account. If you require further capacities, you can assign secondary resources to the phases of a master recipe.

End of the note.

Key Features

You can only assign one primary resource to an operation. When assigning resources, bear the following aspects in mind:

  • How is the operation processed?

If operations are externally processed, you must only assign a resource to them if the control key assigned to the phases specifies that they are scheduled using their standard values.

  • When is the resource selected?

If you can make a definite decision in the master recipe, you immediately assign the resource you want to use for production.

If several resources can be used, you can assign a planning resource to be used provisionally in which you group together the characteristic features of several production resources.

Before releasing the order, you replace the planning resource with a suitable production resource. You can use system-aided resource selection for this, provided that you define the relevant criteria in the master recipe and resource.

  • Which resource category and capacity category is required?

If an operation is purely used for production, you select a processing unit or labor resource as the primary resource.

If you also want to place the material into intermediate storage during an operation, you use a storage resource as the primary resource.

The storage capacity and stocks can be passed on to the Process Flow Scheduler (PFS) or several other planning tools via the POI interface (Production Optimization Interface). In this way, they can be taken into account in capacity requirements planning in the corresponding planning tool (see Intermediate Material Storage in Storage Resources).

Special Features for Resource Replacement

If you replace a resource that you have already assigned somewhere with a different resource, note the following:

  • The content of the standard values is specified by the standard value key of the new resource. In addition, the rules for maintenance defined in the new resource become valid.

However, standard values you have defined for the old resource are not deleted. For this reason, check all standard values after replacing a resource.

  • When you replace a resource in the master recipe, default values and activity types are only copied from the new resource when they have been marked as references in the resource.

  • The units of measurement of the standard values are not copied.

Activities

You enter the primary resource for an operation on the operation overview (see Editing Operations/Phases on the Operation Overview).