If you want to look at capacity load of production areas in capacity planning rather than at the load of specific work centers then you can represent the areas of the business that are relevant to planning in work center hierarchies. You can then cumulate the available capacities and capacity requirements.

The following graphic displays an example of cumulating available capacities.

In this graphic the following cumulations are carried out:

• The available capacities "labor" in work centers center 3 and center 4 were cumulated one hierarchy level higher to the work center work center group 2. No cumulation was carried out in this work center for the capacity categories "machine" and "transport" because these capacity categories do not exist in work center group 2.
• The available capacities "machine" and "labor" in work centers center 1 and center 2 were cumulated one hierarchy level higher to the work center work center group 1. No cumulation was carried out in this work center for the capacity category "transport" because this capacity category does not exist in work center group 1.
• The available capacities "machine", "labor" and "transport" for work centers center1 to center 4 at the lowest level of the hierarchy were cumulated two hierarchy levels higher to work center lathe shop.