The Visibility ERP Master Production Schedule (MPS) is used to specify demand, independent from sales orders and forecasts, to drive the MRP process. Multiple named forecasts can be maintained for consumption by MRP. Forecasts may be specified for high level family items. The MPS process can be run as a simulation or as an actual run, and allows for optional direct entry of planned orders.
Other features include:
The Forecast Maintenance function allows each user to enter, view or modify forecasts. It has the ability to record by part number the version of the forecast, the warehouse, date required, quantity required and revision level of the part being forecasted.
The Visibility ERP MPS and Rough Cut Capacity Planning modules give your business the ability to turn a high level business plan into a schedule that balances operation and financial objectives with manufacturing constraints. MPS is fully integrated with the Visibility ERP Material Requirements Planning module, which combines To-Order and Make-to-Stock planning. MRP is fully aware of To-Order manufacturing projects and maintains the integrity of project planned items by ensuring that project related items are only made available o the appropriate project related demands and shortages.
Similarly, in a To-Order environment, items that have been bought to a job are pegged only to the appropriate job. At the same time, lower level Make-to-Stock items can be fully controlled through MRP and their requirements batched to ensure Economic Order Quantities. To supplement Rough Cut Capacity Planning, Visibility ERP also provides the tools to help each supervisor manage the work load through the shop floor at a detailed level. With both finite and infinite capacity scheduling, Visibility ERP makes it easy to identify bottlenecks and put each user in control of scheduling, thus reducing the need for 'fire fighting' and improving the ability to meet customer expectations. Cause and effect schedule manipulation can be facilitated with the integrated use of scheduling applications.
Family Bills of Materials (BOM) sometimes known as planning bills can be used to group items that have a demand relationship. Using Family BOMs forecasting can be simplified and done at the "family" level rather than the part level.
An unlimited number of date-phased MPS buckets may be specified for use with production planning reports and inquires. In MPS, these buckets are also used as points at which the forecast consumption by sales orders is reset.
Supply and demand pegging inquiry provides the ability to immediately view the source of supply for each demand, whether real, simulated or forecast.
Traditional Engineering and Inventory modules provide part master and BOM records. Visibility ERP increases effectiveness by supporting the data models necessary in To-Order business. The as-quoted, as-designed, as-built and as-installed BOM capabilities and detailed part planning parameters assure timely and accurate provisioning of the materials required to meet business demand.
Default MRP part planning parameters are defined for use where part specific planning parameters have not been specified. Where appropriate, discrete part planning parameters may be specified based on order policy code including:
Details may be added to parameters to account for order multiples, minimum lot size, and lead times for demand, planning, paperwork, purchasing, receiving and inspection, fixed or queue, quantity dependent variable lead time and order plan firming.
Warehouses can be grouped or net together for planning and reporting purposes by giving each group an identifier. MRP then treats the grouped warehouses as one warehouse, thus planning the group instead of individual warehouses. The system has the ability to assign only one warehouse to a group if so desired. There may be as many warehouse planning groups as there are warehouses. The use of warehouse planning groups achieves both efficiency in warehouse stocking and distribution together with efficient material planning and utilization among related warehouses.
Visibility ERP Capacity Requirements Planning (CRP) analyzes and controls the scheduled load from shop floor control and the planned load from MRP. CRP is designed to analyze a production plan in terms of plant resource capacity. Work centers, resources and time periods can be identified during which overload or unused time conditions are likely. CRP allows for meeting a short-term overload or unutilized resources condition by entering a temporary increase or decrease in work center capacity for a specified period of time, or by shifting work from one work center to an alternate thereby more effectively distributing the work load.
Analysis of the results of the CRP run can help distinguish between scheduling problems and capacity problems that may require changes to a work center or the product plan. CRP uses a production plan based on capacity requirements from these sources:
Visibility ERP supports the use of infinite resource schedules subject to defined resource constraints. Each resource defined as critical will be scheduled as a constraint resource while non-critical resources will be scheduled using infinite capacity planning logic.
Visibility ERP enables capacity demand modeling via the use of user maintained Bills of Resources. This allows demand models to be constructed without requiring the entry of forecasts. A Bill of Resource may be used to quickly model the introduction of a new product into the capacity and resource planning requirements to determine the impact of this addition via Rough Cut capacity planning.
Rough Cut Capacity Planning for high level planning of resources can be performed at any time. These resources can be performed at any time. These resources determine and display the load which exists in relation to each critical resource based upon the collection of defined Bills of Resources, indented BOMs and routings used for assembly. Reports and inquiry forms facilitate the ease with which critical resources with overload and bottleneck conditions may be identified and appropriate action taken to maximize throughout.
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