Block Planning 

Purpose

Block Planning is the planning or pre-assignment of resource capacities for products with specific attributes, with the purpose of using the capacities more rationally. The attributes are described using characteristics from the SAP system. In block planning, you define blocks on a resource that have a specific duration and attributes, for example, a duration of 2 days per block on which you manufacture products in various colors.

In some industrial sectors, such as the metal and paper industry (piece-oriented production), the planning of orders and operations for various plants/resources/work centers is not solely based on available capacity and the sequence and priority of deadlines. Upstream planning is more often used to define which type of products and which attributes are to be produced in a plant. This is mainly because processing these grouped products requires the plant to be set up in the same way. Changing the setup incurs high costs in terms of time and money. Set sequences of products or regular maintenance periods at set intervals also play a role, especially in block duration. Different industries have different ways of looking at the problem:

·        In the process industry, it is common for several orders to be grouped together as what is known as a campaign. Because the process cannot normally be interrupted once it has begun, the emphasis is more on order level, without differentiating between the individual plants where the orders are being processed. A campaign is therefore better defined by the material characteristics of the end product.

·        However, in piece-oriented production there is more emphasis on the resource upon which only one production step is executed. An order can easily run over several resources, in which each of the operations could be grouped according to different aspects. In this respect, operations (or activities in SAP APO) are compared with resources, though the characteristics upon which emphasis is placed are not determined only by those of the product (or intermediate product) to be created, but also by those of the components used.

A predefined sequencing by the setup key is not affected by block planning. It is carried out within the blocks.

Implementation Considerations

You can only carry out block planning in SAP APO.

You should transfer the classes and characteristics from the ERP system to ensure that this data is consistent in both the ERP and SAP APO system (see Transferring Classes and Characteristics).

You can use production data structures (PDS) or product process model plans (PPMs) as the source of supply for in-house production. These structures are used to map the BOMs and routings of the ERP system in SAP APO. In the integration model, you define which structure you would like to use (see Productions Process Model Plans for CDP and Block Planning and Production Data Structures (PDS) for CDP and Block Planning). 

Production Order with Block Planning

If no suitable block is found when transferring orders planned on blocks from the ERP system, for example, during an initial data transfer, then block planning is not considered in SAP APO.