Planning Primer: Order Code, Size & Start Date 

Nancy Zawacki CPIM CIRM, PowerShift Support Team, Qantel Technologies Inc.

Frequent questions about Finished Goods Planning (MFP) and Material Requirements Planning (MRP) include:

► What inventory fields affect how items are planned?

► What fields control the size of planned orders or requisitions created?

► How is the start date determined?

Order code (maintained in IM, Enterprise Item Maintenance) determines if the item is planned by MFP or MRP.  If the order code is 0, the item is planned by MFP; if the order code is 2, the item is planned by MRP.  For order code 1 items, MRP performs calculations and produces an advisory report that can be used to manually plan orders. 

Planned Order Size
The Min order qty, Lot size, and Max plan period fields (maintained in IMB, Branch Item Maintenance) determine the size of planned orders.  Planning logic determines the net requirement.

Max plan period is the number of shop days that you want an order to cover.  If you have a net requirement of 5 for June 6^th, 7^th, 8^th, 9^th & 10^th and a Max plan period of 5 days, the planning program will create one planned order or requisition with a due date of June 6th for a quantity of 25 rather than 5 planned orders each for a quantity of 5 with due dates of June 6^th, 7^th, etc. 

Lot size is the standard quantity in which this item is ordered or produced.  Using the previous example, if the Lot size is 10 and the Max plan period is 5, the planned order or requisition would be created for a quantity of 30 due on June 6^th.

Min order qty is a factor of economy of scale.  Continuing the example, if the Lot size is 10 and the Max plan period is 5 and the Min order qty is 50, the planned order or requisition would be created for a quantity of 50 due on June 6^th. 

Planned Order Start Dates
A record of available work days for each manufacturing branch for each year is maintained in Shop Calendar Maintenance (XCM).  Planning logic determines and adjusts the start date of planned orders based on the shop calendar.

Lead times (maintained in IMB, Branch Item Maintenance) are used to calculate start dates.  The accumulated lead time (Accum LT) is used by Finished Goods Planning to determine the required start date based on the due date of the requirements.  If the accumulated lead time is 0, MFP uses the sum of the manufacturing lead time (Mfg LT) plus the order preparation (Order prep LT) lead time. 

The lead times used by Material Requirements Planning depend on whether the item is manufactured or purchased (the Make/Buy/Kit flag is set in IM, Enterprise Item Maintenance).  For Buy items, MRP uses the sum of Order prep plus the Intransit and Put-away lead times.  For Make items, MRP uses the sum of the manufacturing (Mfg LT) plus the order preparation lead times.  (Kits are unassembled configured items planned by MFP.) 

Routings Provide Additional Control of Order Size
Maximum order quantity (Max order qty) is maintained in Routing Maintenance (RTM).  The field sets the maximum quantity that you want to allow on a manufacturing order.  This can be very useful, especially if you need to maintain or reset a machine after a certain quantity is run.  The Order Release Preparation (MPR) program uses the maximum order quantity specified in the routing to create multiple orders for the same due date.  For example, if the requirement is 500 and the maximum order quantity is 100, five orders of 100 each are created.

 If you have any questions about the planning programs, please contact helpdesk@qantel.com.