Views and Ideas of a traveling SAP supply chain optimizer: May 2017

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Capacity Planning with SAP

Working for more than 20 years with companies from many different industries, I took a stab at writing down my thoughts on how SAP's functionality might help to make more sense out of production scheduling.

Capacity planning, sequencing, leveling and scheduling of orders is a topic that often is neglected and carried out in Excel spreadsheets and third party tools. With this writing I attempted to explain in simple terms some possibilities in the SAP-ERP offering and express my views on the subject and how it is often used (or not) in companies running on SAP.

The book is available on amazon or espressotutorials.com

Did you know... (send an email to uwe@bigbytesoftware.com if you want me to elaborate)

that MF50 is a great transaction to do production scheduling... even with discrete orders!
that the coverage profile does not only drive your inventory to a dynamic, minimum safety stock, but also keeps your stock below a maximum? You will have to make sure though, that you use lot size indicator 'EX'
that you can collectively availability check all planned orders with transaction MDVP. Make sure you customize a layout that directs the check with your desired functions.
that you can collectively availability check production orders with transaction COMAC
that you can perform an approximate capacity check on your production plant right out of the long term forecast in ERP. That way you do not send infeasable numbers to MRP
that you can use the availability check during production order release to control WIP levels in the cell or line? Set the control so that orders with missing capacity can't be released