Since malfunctions and other disturbances in the production process can never be fully prevented, the system carries out scheduling using a float before and a float after production.

The float before production has the following two functions in the order:

• It can compensate for delays in the staging of the material components.
• If there is a capacity bottleneck at the work centers involved, you can move the production dates forward in the future. In this way it serves as a float for capacity leveling.

The float after production is used in the order to compensate for unexpected interruptions in the production process. It prevents a delay of the scheduled finish.

The system calculates the scheduled start by adding the float before production to the basic start date. It calculates the scheduled finish by subtracting the float after production from the basic finish date (see figure).

The floats before and after production are defined in the material master record using a scheduling margin key.