Under the menu heading Material Requirements Planning in the Inventory module, you will find procedures that deal with all aspects of materials control and logistics. You can perform requirements planning, from an individual part to an automated netting run including the explosion of entire structures. You can make further requirement analyses using the Check Delivery Times procedure. You will also find procedures for stock refill based on annual volume/annual pace. This is also where you manage manufacturing and sales forecasts, releasing orders from suggestions and managing rescheduling suggestions for orders.
Below you will find a brief description of all the procedures that can be found under the Material Requirements Planning menu in the Inventory module of a complete MONITOR system.
Part Info
The Part Info procedure contains all the current part information, as well as a number of different logs. You can open the Part Info procedure anywhere in the system by right-clicking to open the Info menu and using the Part Info option. The Part Info is then linked to the part that has been loaded into the open procedure. The Part Info window is similar to the Update Part – Inventory window, with the exception that you cannot update any information in Part Info. There is a special tab called Order Window, that is used to obtain planning information for requirements planning, and to replan different orders at the part level.
Requirement Calculation
Here you can print lists that show stock shortages for parts during different periods. These lists can be used as a basis to create manufacturing order and purchase orders, or used to generate order suggestions or your own custom suggestions. These can then be used to generate actual orders that should cover any stock shortages that may occur. The requirement calculation is the foundation or basis for all requirements planning and is the primary procedure in the materials control portion of MONITOR.
Requirement Simulation
Here you can create simulated manufacturing orders. These simulations can then be used during requirements planning to check what kind of material requirements you will have. It can also be used to check the loading for the affected work centers via a simulated manufacturing order. You can also generate actual or "real" manufacturing orders from simulations you have saved.
Check Delivery Times
The purpose of the Check Delivery Times (CDT) is to create more reasonable master plans. Manufacturing orders will be created with more reasonable finish dates, considering available capacity and material. The CDT can be used to check when you can deliver a part on a customer order row. It is also possible to check the finish period for a manufacturing order. The CDT indirectly describes when the manufacturing can be started for the order, which will make it a type of simulation to plan the start of a manufacturing order according to the available capacity.
Besides the fact that you directly check the order's delivery date or finish date, you can also make a simulation that will give a delivery notice without having an order. This is used to support the work of giving a delivery notice to the customer and, at the same time, make reservations to secure that delivery notice.
Refill List - Purchase
This procedure is used if you use stock replenishment or Stock Refill System (SRS) in MONITOR. Here you can load lists for stock replenishment / stock refill for selected purchase and packaging parts. Parts with lot sizing rule B (Bucket parts) are not managed in refill lists. You can also generate purchase orders directly in a list, which is the equivalent of the function in the Purchase Order Suggestion procedure.
Refill List - Manufacturing
This procedure is used if you use stock replenishment or Stock Refill System (SRS) in MONITOR. Here you can load lists for stock replenishment / stock refill for selected manufactured, stocked and fictitious parts. Parts with lot sizing rule B (Bucket parts) are not managed in refill lists. You can also generate manufacturing orders directly in a list, which is the equivalent of the function in the Manufacturing Order Suggestion procedure.
Register Manufacturing Forecast
Here you can perform requirements planning based on manufacturing forecasts. This procedure is used to enter manufacturing forecasts using time intervals. Each forecast is then linked to one or more forecast rows. On each forecast row you enter a part with the quantity to be manufactured and the finish period.
Register Sales Forecast
Here you can perform requirements planning based on sales forecasts. The expected sales for a certain period of time ahead, such as a month, quarter etc., that is used as the basis for these forecasts, can be either estimated or loaded from sales statistics from the previous year or another similar period. In this procedure, you create sales forecasts using a time interval in number of work days. Each forecast is then linked to one or more forecast rows. On each forecast row you enter a part with the quantity you expect to sell and that should be reserved, and the delivery period.
Deducting Sales Forecast
In this procedure you can load a list used to deduct current sales forecasts. The deduction is made from registered customer and service orders. The procedure can be used for customer or service orders with large calls further ahead in time.
Forecast List
This procedure allows you to print a list of manufacturing and sales forecast rows. You can select forecasts for certain part types, as well as which type of forecast you want to include in the list. You can also select inactive forecasts. It also allows you to select different price alternatives for the parts in all the forecasts, in order to convert the forecasts into actual currency amounts. This is very convenient when you wish to analyze the expected turnover for sales forecasts versus the budgeted sales, or actual sales for previous years.
Generate Sales Forecast
This procedure makes it easier for users that receive annual budgets from customers or perhaps prepare annual budgets themselves, to create a periodized forecast that can be used in the Netting procedure.
Run Netting Manufacturing Forecast
Here you can perform requirements planning based on manufacturing forecasts. You can only perform requirements planning for parts that have registered manufacturing forecasts. The procedure generates manufacturing and purchase order suggestions for several parts at a time, throughout all the structure levels. The parts that are given order suggestions are those that will have shortages due to reservations originating from manufacturing forecasts. But you can also take reservations from sales forecasts, customer orders or material requirements from manufacturing orders into account, if they should apply to incorporated parts. These suggestions can later be used to generate actual manufacturing and purchase orders.
Run Netting
Here you can perform requirements planning based on the customer order backlog, as well as any existing sales forecasts. The procedure generates manufacturing and purchase order suggestions for several parts at a time, throughout all the structure levels. The parts that are given order suggestions are those that will have shortages due to reservations originating from customer orders or material requirements from manufacturing forecasts. These suggestions can later be used to generate actual manufacturing and purchase orders.
Purchase Order Suggestion
This procedure allows you to load a list of purchase order suggestions that were generated during requirement calculations or netting runs. You can later choose to generate actual purchase orders from these order suggestions by "releasing" purchase orders.
Manufacturing Order Suggestion
This procedure allows you to load a list of manufacturing order suggestions that were generated during requirement calculations or netting runs. You can later choose to generate actual manufacturing orders from these order suggestions by "releasing" manufacturing orders.
Rescheduling Suggestion - In
Here you can load a list of parts that have registered manufacturing orders and purchase orders, for which rescheduling suggestions have been generated during requirements planning. In this list, you can check – row by row – which orders you want to reschedule or replan using a new finish period or delivery period, respectively. You can then execute the replanning of all the manufacturing orders and purchase orders using the rescheduling suggestions.
Rescheduling Analysis
In this procedure you can make calculations to see which orders that are "too early" and that can be moved ahead in time to cover requirements that arise later on. The calculation is based on the order's finish or delivery period. The calculation searches for the next requirement date ahead in time (if any) and creates rescheduling suggestions for requirements that arise later on. Manufacturing orders with underlying material requirement and loading can also be rescheduled.