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 Capacity Leveling Profile

Definition

Profile, with which you can specify parameters for controlling capacity leveling in Supply Network Planning (SNP). Parameters include scheduling direction, leveling method, and consideration of priorities. You can enter the profile when you run capacity leveling in the background and in interactive planning.

Structure

Capacity Leveling Method

You can choose one of the following three leveling methods:

  • Heuristic : The heuristic processes the individual orders on a period basis. That means, when a resource is overloaded, the system moves order quantities into subsequent or previous periods depending on the direction of scheduling (forward or backward) until the desired maximum load for the resource is reached. The total order quantities in the planning horizon are not changed. In contrast to the optimizer, the heuristic does not always find optimal resource utilization results.

  • Optimizer : The optimizer considers the quantities per period; that is, not the individual orders . At the start of processing, it deletes all existing orders that are not fixed (based on the setting) and then creates new orders. As with the heuristic, the total order quantities in the planning horizon are not changed. You can achieve a more even utilization of resources than you can using the heuristic.

    Optimization-based capacity leveling uses the SNP optimizer to level resources. However, in contrast to the SNP optimizer, the constraints and costs taken into account are defined automatically and cannot be influenced by the user. The costs are only used to control capacity leveling. They have no business significance.

  • BAdI : The Business Add-In /SAPAPO/SNP_CAP provides an interface that you can use to connect your own method to capacity leveling. You can choose it here once you have activated the BAdI.

    For more information, see Comparison of the Capacity Leveling Methods and Heuristic-Based Capacity Leveling: Examples .

Scheduling Direction

You can define the direction in which the system executes capacity leveling; that is, the direction in which the system moves order quantities from the order availability date when a resource is overloaded.

The quantities are moved within the planning horizon. For the planning horizon, the system uses either the planning buckets profile defined in the planning book or the planning buckets profile you specified in the capacity leveling profile. You can also define the planning horizon in interactive Supply Network Planning by selecting the start and end time period or by entering a ‘from’ and ‘to’ date in the function for running capacity leveling in the background.

The options available are:

  • Forward scheduling : The order quantities are moved from the availability date into the future.

  • Backward scheduling : The order quantities are moved from the availability date into the past (until today's date at the latest, minus the defined horizons).

  • Combined forward and backward scheduling : The order quantities are moved both into the future and the past.

Prioritizing Orders

You can specify which orders are to be considered first during heuristic-based capacity leveling for a resource, meaning which orders will be the first to be moved to a different period. For instance, during forward scheduling, the orders are moved to a later period first and during backward scheduling, they are moved to an earlier period.

The options available are:

  • No priority: With this option, capacity leveling does not take into account any product or order priorities. We recommend that you use this setting if you want to have optimal resource utilization. Specifying a priority can have a negative effect on the capacity leveling results for optimal resource utilization.

  • Order size: With this option, capacity leveling takes into account orders according to their size. For example, you can specify that during backward scheduling, large orders are moved to the earlier periods first.

  • Product priority: With this option, capacity leveling takes into account the orders according to the priority specified for products in the location product master. For example, you can specify that, during forward scheduling, unimportant products are first moved to later periods.

You can also choose whether you want the priorities defined to be sorted in ascending or descending order.

  • Ascending : When you choose the Product Priority option, the capacity leveling function moves orders for highest priority products first (priority 1), then orders for second highest priority products (priority 2), and so on. When you choose the Order Size option, capacity leveling moves the small orders first.

  • Descending : When you choose the ProductPriority option, the capacity leveling function moves orders for lowest priority products first (priority 255 or 0), then orders for second highest priority products (priority 254), and so on. When you choose the OrderSize option, capacity leveling moves the large orders first.

You define the product priority on the SNP 2 tab page of the location product master. Optimization-based capacity leveling does not consider priorities.

Handling of fixed orders and order fixing during capacity leveling

You can specify that the system also levels fixed orders. This means that the system also moves, changes, and deletes orders that were fixed in earlier planning runs. Note that this can cause orders that were fixed for subsequent planning runs to be lost since, for example, optimization-based capacity leveling first deletes all existing orders and then creates new ones.

You can also specify that all orders for subsequent planning runs are to be fixed during capacity leveling; that is, they can no longer be edited after leveling.

Maximum Load and Maximum Runtime

You can specify the maximum load for a resource (as a percentage) that you want the system to take into account during capacity leveling. This value does not represent an absolute upper bound. Since the total quantity of all the orders that exist in the planning horizon has to remain the same, resource overloads might occur if the required capacity is not available.

You can also define the maximum runtime (in minutes) for capacity leveling. Once this runtime has been exceeded, the system terminates planning. The following details apply to the heuristicand optimizercapacity leveling methods:

  • Heuristic: The heuristic processes the orders on a period basis. Once the runtime has been exceeded, the system completely terminates processing for the current period. Solutions exist for the periods that had already been processed.

  • Optimizer: Since the optimizer attempts to determine an optimal solution, it might already have found a solution for the entire planning horizon; however, this solution might not represent the best possible solution.

For the planning results found before termination, refer to the log.