FINITE CAPACITY SCHEDULING
In the following pages 4 examples are shown:
1. massive schedulation tool
2. manual planned order creation
3. sales order creation and its avalaibility check
4. planned order conversion
For each of them is shown how finite capacity control works.
For these examples 3 materials are used:
matsched1 and matsched2 that are similar and have the same routing. The only difference between
them is that matsched2 is NOT managed with finite capacity control.
Matsched3 that has a different rounting and is managed using finite capacity control.
Their routing are shown below.
For each sequence, they are shown the operations and the work centers too.
Massive scheduling
For these materials there are 8 sales orders items, as you can see in the next 2 pictures.
Because of these requirements, mrp created and scheduled 7 planned orders and allocated the
relative requirement to each work center, using infinite capacity criteria. In this case, mrp has used
backward scheduling.
In the next pictures is shown the weekly capacity allocation (using CM01 transaction) of the first 5
work centers: M1, M2. M3. M4, M5. Almost all of them have overload in some weeks (red color).
After this, a custom program is run, as shown below. In this case, it uses backward scheduling.
The next 3 pictures are the screen output of the program.
Rescheduling button
Planned order basic
dates/hours
Scheduling criteria
1) start date fixed,possible discontinuity
2) always continuity, but possible holes
3) fill holes, but possible discontinuity
4) ecc. ecc.
Planned order priority
The scheduling dates depends on :
1. the priority. It is related to the sequence of the planned order requirements that are allocated to
the capacity. The first has the better situation, the last the worste one.
2. the criteria. It is related to the ordered sequence of free intervals that are considered for the
capacity allocation. In extreme cases, if continuity is requested, the planned order start at the
end of the “farest” one and uses the last free interval, otherwise if a “holes fill logic” is
requested, it has discontinuity and uses the first useful free interval.
After any change, it must be rescheduled to obtain new dates (see the icon).
In the report can be added some indicators to be calculated (work center allocation, average of the
stock caused by the discontinuities, delay of the planned order, ecc.) to evaluate the changes done.
When the indicators are fine, the scheduling can be saved (typical “saving” icon).
Exploding the structure, there are the work center details of each planned order, as sohwn below.
Critical activity, based on “Crtical
path method” method. If it is shifted,
the planned order duration is shifted
of the same time
Wait time: it is the time that a non
critical activity can be shifted,
without involve the entire duration of
the planned order
For instance, it can be saved this situation, without any changes.
In the next pictures, is shown the new capacity allocation of each work center obtained by the
scheduling shown above. As it can be seen, no more overload exists: the capacity has been
distributed on all the period in the limit of the availability of each capacity.
Planned order creation
If a planned order is manually created for matsched1, it runs the finite capacity check. Otherwise if
it is created for matsched2, it doesen’t, because for this material is avoided this logic. Both are
considered in the next pictures, to compare them and their dates. In both cases, it is used forward
scheduling.
This material has been scheduled with an infinite capacity check, that’s why there aren’t jumps
between its phases.
In the next pictures matsched1 has been scheduled (same quantity, same start date, same routing of
the order described above) with a finite capacity check and the dates of its phases have jumps.
In the following pictures it’s shown how the dates have jumped to free intervals: in each work
center the first free date, that becomes the new start date, is highlighted with the corresponding
color of the planned order above.
Comparing the 2 planned orders, 2 things are evident:
• different dates of the same phase
• same capacity requirement for each phase (last column)
Sales order creation
This example shows the finite capacity check during a sales order creation. It has been used a
“make to order” process and an item type that creates automatically a planned order. In this case, it
is used a forward scheduling. During the availability check it appears the following screen.
Using the standard way to see the mrp elements (ATP button), it appears the next pop-up.
It has been created a planned order with number 4031 and its scheduling is shown below.
It can be compared with the result of the manual planned order creation: they have identical dates.
Anyway the finite capacity check can also be used during “make to stock” process, because it is
possible to use a custom function, based on finite capacity check, and provide the “real” delivery
date during availability check.
Planned order conversion
The last step of the examples, is the planned orders conversion into production orders: it can be
done by standard transactions CO40 or CO41. In the next pictures are shown planned orders and
their production orders (output of the conversion), to compare their dates and verify that are
identical (in contrast with standard SAP way of work).
Using CO41, they will be convert two planned orders. That’s shown in the next pictures.
The details of the new production orders are shown below.
Once production orders dates are copied from planned order (which have been calculated with finite
capacity criteria), the work is done. From this point, it can proceed in standard way.
