Resource Leveling 

Use: Resource Leveling for Work Center Capacities

SOP comes with a split screen for the planning and leveling of work center capacities. The advantage of the split planning screen is that you can compare the capacity situation directly with your plan. In the lower section of the screen, the available capacity, capacity requirements, and capacity load are displayed for each work center used in production and each capacity category. The system reads the available capacity from the work center, and the capacity requirements from the routing or rough-cut planning profile. If you change the production quantities/key figure values in the upper section of the screen, the new capacity requirements and capacity load appear in the lower section of the screen.

Planning is related to specific periods. For example, your company might plan to produce 1,000 units of the product group "chairs" in the month of May. In the same way, available capacity and capacity requirements are displayed on a period-by-period basis. For example, the system works out that 100 machine hours of an available 160 hours will be required at work center "assembly" in the month of May to produce 1,000 units of the product group "chairs". You cannot overwrite the capacity requirements in the planning table. To change the capacity requirements in the planning table, you change the quantities in the production line (if you are working in standard SOP) or the key figure to which the capacities are tied (if you are working in flexible planning), and then you choose Enter .

Of particular interest is the capacity load. The capacity load shows you instantly whether you have sufficient capacities to realize your plan. Capacity load is expressed as a percentage. In our example, if the work center "assembly" requires 100 of the 160 available machine hours to produce 1,000 units of the product group "chairs", then the capacity load is 62.5%.

SOP gives you an all-embracing view of the capacity situation. It takes into account the requirements of all materials, product groups, or characteristic value combinations for the same capacities. The Capacity requirements and Capacity load lines reflect total requirements for a particular capacity. To view the source of the capacity requirements in a period, place your cursor on them and choose Views ® Capacity situation ® Pegged requirements.

The system creates an SOP order for each production target in each period when you save the planning version. SOP orders are used internally. If capacity requirements exist, the system records these, too, with reference to the internal SOP order when you save the planning version.

If you run a background job (for example, a macro) that creates or changes the key figure to which the resources are tied, the new capacity requirements are automatically computed and updated internally for the SOP order.

If you change the rough-cut planning profile, the new capacity requirements are not shown in the planning table unless you change the production line or key figure to which the resources are tied. You can do this, for example, by defining a default macro (-1, +1).

In standard SOP, if you carried out capacity leveling at product group level before disaggregating the production line to the material level, the capacity requirements of the materials are not recorded internally for their SOP orders. However, these requirements need to exist if the Capacity requirements and Capacity load lines at the material level in the planning table are to show total requirements for a particular capacity. To create these requirements for the materials’ SOP orders, set up a macro to run in the background. Define this macro so that it changes the production line of the materials (for example, "production - 1, production + 1"). Where rough-cut planning profiles or routings exist for the materials, the system computes their capacity requirements and records them for their internal SOP orders.

How capacities are scheduled depends on whether the Scheduling indicator has been set and, in detailed planning, on which Scheduling type has been set (in Customizing for Sales & Operations Planning under Configure scheduling parameters).

Use: Resource Leveling for Materials, Production Resources/Tools, and Costs

You display the requirements for materials and production resources/tools or costs in a standard analysis. From here, you can drill down to further levels of detail on an item. For example, you can find out the amount of each material and production resource/tool required in a particular plant, or all the cost elements in a controlling area that will be affected by this consumption of resources.

You maintain requirements for materials, production resources/tools, and costs in a rough-cut planning profile.

You can also create the planned availability of a material in a particular plant with Planning ® Material availability. The availability of the material is then displayed in the standard analysis next to its planned requirements. You create the availability of a material with reference to a planning version. Different available quantities are possible in different planning versions. You can therefore simulate the effects of different availability situations in different planning versions.

You can save the results of a standard analysis as a version of information structure S093 (materials and production resources/tools) or S092 (costs).

For more information on standard analyses, see LO Logistics Information System.

 

See also:

How to Carry Out Resource Leveling

Rough-Cut Planning Profiles

Carrying Out Resource Leveling