Heuristic-Based Planning 

Purpose

The heuristic is used as part of a repair-based planning process consisting of the heuristic, capacity leveling, and deployment. The heuristic run processes each planning location sequentially and determines sourcing requirements. The heuristic processing groups all demands for a given product at a location into one demand for the bucket. The heuristic run determines valid sources of supply and corresponding quantity based on pre-defined percentages for each source of supply (quota arrangements), or procurement priorities for transportation lanes and production process models (PPMs) or production data structures (PDS). The demands are then passed through the supply chain to calculate a plan. However, this plan is not necessarily feasible. The planner can then use capacity leveling to adjust the plan and formulate a feasible plan.

Both the key figures upon which the heuristic is based and the planning horizon are determined by the planning book. Macros can also be used to define how you want to calculate general key figures such as Total Demand and Stock on Hand, or product-specific key figures such as Safety Stock, Reorder Point, and Target Stock Level (for more information, see Advanced Macros and SNP Functions).

 

Process

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       1.      You run the heuristic.

       2.      You run capacity leveling.

       3.      You run deployment.

       4.      You run the Transport Load Builder (TLB).

The Heuristic Run Process Flow

The heuristic plans all distribution demands for all locations within the distribution network before exploding the BOM and processing dependent demand at the production locations. The system explodes the BOM only when you choose a multilevel heuristic run.

Factors Considered in Processing

·        Location products

·        Low-level codes of the location products

·        Valid production process models (PPMs)

·        Valid transportation lanes

·        Quota arrangements or procurement priorities

·        Lead times

·        Calendars

·        Lot size rules

·        Scrap

·        Component availability

·        SNP demand profile

·        SNP supply profile

·        Demand profile

Other Considerations

·        The heuristic run considers all demand for a given product/location combination within one period as one demand.

·        The heuristic planning sequence is governed by the low-level codes of the location products. For more information, see Low-Level Code Determination.

·        The initial solution produced by the heuristic run may not be feasible because the system assumes that capacity is infinite. The planner must then adjust the plan by leveling resource capacity. For more information, see Capacity Leveling.

·        The heuristic run results do not include pegging orders back to the original individual requirement because requirements are bucketed.

See also:

Running the Heuristic in the Background