I have a question about planning/ordering system of items.

My client set demand forecast for each product and simulate material requirements based on the demand forecast. Purchase order planning is based on the simulation but the production order planning is based on the Re-order point (SIC). So in-short they want purchase orders to be planned on the Enterprise Planning (Demnad forecast of material's parent product) but the production orders to be planned by SIC.

Is it possible to do this, where one item is planned by EP for purchasing based on demand forcast of its parent product, and same time the parent product is planned by SIC for pruduction. Because product's order system needs to be "planned" to set demand forecast, it's not possible to run SIC planning for production. We are on Baan 5.0C.

If anyboddy have this kind of experience, or know how to configure it, please help me. Thank you in advance.

Hi brewskizzle,

If you asked possible or not, I'd say it is possible but I don't think it is practical.

The way I see it, there are several ways though..

1. Define all manufactured item and production as planned. After running simulate order, just ignore all the planned production order. Then run the Generate Order Advice session. But I think you have to run that generate order session once for each level BOM. So, after generating the supply for the item FG (BOM level 0), transfer the advice to shop floor to create demand for its lower level item (BOM level 1). Then you do generate order advice again for level 1, transfer to Shop Floor and again and again until all the production requirement are met.

2. You can set all manufactured item as SIC, but you won't be able to create Item Planning Data. So instead of keying-in demand forecast in Item Master Plan, you can use session "Special Demand by Item" instead.
You get the same result, however, you need to erase all special demand after you have used them to create orders, otherwise system will keep on seeing this demand as outstanding demand. For the generate order advice, it's just like No.1

3. You can use sales quotation feature to account for the demand forecast.
So put all your forecast as sales quotation and set the Scenario to aggregate sales quotation. This way, the system will look at all the sales quotations with success percentage greater than amount you also specified, and account them as demand.

Those are just concepts though. I've never really tried that. You should check again to see if its right. Do let me know the result.

Regards,
Hendra

Hi, Hendra. Thank you for your reply.

I tried the ways you sugested, and got some problems. It seems like the parent item should always be plan item to run MRP/MPS for it's child item...
I got the following situations.

1. I understand the way you suggested. But I think item's order system needs to be SIC to run the "Generate Order Advice" session. So if you define manufactured items as planned, Baan will not create production orders for those items by running the session.

2. Even though you use session "Special Demand by Item" instead of using "Item Master Plan" to set demand forcast, the item has to be plan item, doesn't it? I tried to set special demand for SIC item, but I got a message "'Plan Item' not found in table Plan Items"...
I can define all purchase items as Planned and set either demand forcast or special demand, however, my client has many common materials/parts and wants to aggregate all demand for those items. So demand should be set for Finished Goods.

3. Sales quotation is aggregated and shown as "Independent Demand" on Item Master Plan only when the item is plan item. It doesn't show "Dependent Demand" for item's components on Item Master Plan, if the item is not a plan item. So the system doesn't create planned purchase orders for those items by running order simulation.

It seems like the parent item should always be plan item to run MRP/MPS for it's child item... Please let me know if my understanding about your suggestion was not correct, or you have any further workaround.

Thank you for helping me =)

I guess you're right.

The special demand by item and sales quotation cannot be used. However option number 1 can still be used. I've tried it myself. Just check my scenarion and see if this fits your condition.

Master Data sets:
- Create 4 items, A= FG, B = Middle Item, C and D= Purchased item (A is made of B and B is made of C and D)
- All item's ordering data are Planned.
- Demand must come from Sales, cannot thru demand forecast in item master plan because somehow system doesn't look at it as demand (for SIC calculation but ok for EP calculation)
- All transactions are on Order Based period
- Fixed lead time for item A and B must be filled as this serves as a visibility period for SIC to calculate (my case, I set it as 2 days)
- Alternatively you can set the inventory analysis parameter in General Tab, lower part (time fence factor and time fence constant, my case TFF = 1, TFC = 0) for SIC's visibility

Transaction sets:
- Create sales order two days from now
- Run simulate order for item A
- Remove all planned production order
- Run Generate Advice order session and system will create production advice for A
- Confirm and transfer the advice to shop floor
- Run the Generate Advice order session again, and you'll get production advice for B.

That's what I've tried and it worked. Try it and let me know the result.

Regards,
Hendra

Hi Hendra,

You were right! It worked pretty well. I just didn't know that it's possible to run Generate Order Advice for non-SIC items. Also, the calculation of advised quantity seems like working good. But then what does baan have Order System "SIC" for? Is is just an indicator and doesn't have any influence on system's functionality?

Anyways, thank you so much for your advise!

Regards,
Yusuke