Capacity data in the work center and available capacity together tell you what your people and machines can handle in a certain period of time. Available capacity tells you how much work the capacity category can perform per work center.

Capacity categories include:

• a machine on the shop floor

• a group of people working on a production line

• a group of engineers

You can have several capacities per capacity category.

The system calculates the capacity requirements for networks using the formula entered in work center maintenance. This formula is maintained on the Overview of Capacity Allocations screen in the field Other formula. Generally, the system uses the value you entered for work in the network activity in the formula, however, you can specify other formula parameters.

Capacity planning compares the capacity requirements of activities that were calculated in scheduling with the available capacity defined in the work center.

To carry out detailed resource and resource commitment planning, you can divide capacity categories into individual capacities, for example, into single machines, for which you can enter specific capacity data.

In the network activity, you can split the capacity requirements into individual capacities ("capacity splits").

You can assign individual people to a work center or a capacity category. To be able to do this, you must first enter them in personnel administration

In the network activity, you can split the capacity requirements among the people necessary to perform the activity. You can confirm the work that these people have performed as well as their attendance or absence in a confirmation of the activity.

By assigning a work center or a capacity category to a position, you can use the position to select people for their qualifications. You must first have defined the positions in the Personnel Planning & Development System (PD).

If you enter qualifications for the activities in a network, you can reference them later via the position.

To guarantee a selection among suitable employees, you can enter the qualifications to be "met" in the work center or the capacity category. Later, in resource planning you can reference this information via the position.

Qualifications which you enter for activities in a network will be compared with the qualifications in the work center or the capacity category when you create a ranking list. From this list you can select the people who best meet the requirements for the activity. The ranking list is created from the total requirements profile, taking the qualification requirements from the work center, capacity and activity all into consideration.

With the distribution key for capacity requirements you can specify how much of the capacity is required for a certain percentage of the duration. This distribution is taken into consideration in capacity planning. You can enter the distribution key in the work center, in the activity or in capacity planning. In the work center, networks are considered one of the "other types of internal processing". In Customizing of capacity planning you can determine which distribution key will be used in capacity planning.