Plan#

Estimated time to read: 7 minutes

A Plan is the central entity for the attainment of an production need. A Plan represents a matrix of quantities indexed by:

• A manufacturing unit (Product or Product Group) called Plan Item.
• A set of time periods called Time Frames.

This matrix will be associated to a Critical Manufacturing MES Plan Item level (Area, Facility, Site or Enterprise) and the Plan is used to hold the definitions and actual quantities that are planned to be produced on a specific manufacturing level and within a given time frame.

This document will guide you through the required configurations and set up for the Plan functionality.

Overview#

The Plan entity is intended to fulfil a specific production demand and can be used at different practical levels.

In Critical Manufacturing MES, Plan is a structure that represents any production plan at any level, which is relevant to MES, in the form of production volumes for a certain manufacturing unit or specified item(s) and for a specified horizon.

Its purpose is to validate or track and to compare the plan volumes with the actual volumes recorded in MES.

Main objectives of Plan:

• Track if the volumes are being kept.

• Allow importing Planned Volumes from an external system - commercial planning solution or through Master Data Package loading.

Setting up a Plan#

To have a functioning Plan, you have to set up other Critical Manufacturing MES entities as shown in the following table:

Table: Steps to set up the Plan-related entities

The next sub-sections will cover the required configuration steps in more detail.

Step 1: Step#

1. Select the Step you intend to use:

   

2. Select Edit on the top ribbon:

   

3. Go to Settings and enable Is Plan Counting Step:

   

4. Select Save.

Step 2: Calendar#

1. Select the Calendar you intend to use:

   

2. In Views, select Calendar Days:

   

3. Make sure you have calendar days generated:

   

Using Plan#

After setting up the required configurations mentioned above, the Plan functionality can be used, as described in the next sections.

Create Plan#

1. Create your plan:

   

2. To establish a hierarchy and have all you need to define Plan values in detail, complete all fields and wizard steps accordingly, and keep the information below in mind:

   

3. General Data and Plan Items wizard steps:

   • complete the Parent Plan field with an already existing plan.
   • complete the Plan Group field with a lookup value, which can be used to classify Plans at the same level and that refer to the same overall process.
   • select the Plan Item Level accordingly - Product/Product Group.
   • establish the scope and horizon.
   • establish the Frozen Period, which will prevent changes to the initial values.
   • select the Sub-Plan Synchronization Mode, which automatically defines the terms of breaking down targets.

4. Volume Counting Steps and Excluded Material Types wizard steps:

   • define how actual plan values will be counted.
   • define the Step for counting so when a material reaches it the actual values/volumes will be updated with the quantity of that material.
   • it is possible to have multiple counting steps.
   • establish additional precision by defining a Flow Path or Logical Flow Path.
   • specify material types of materials you do not want to count or exclude.

5. At the end select Create.

   Note

   For more information, see Plan.

Create Scenario#

When your Plan is created for the first time (this example uses: Area, and Product, and Day), it is empty:

For it to have values you need to create a Plan Scenario. Your Plan will then be updated based on the Plan Scenario, which is a set of Planned Volumes created at a certain moment in time. Follow the steps below to create your Plan Scenario:

1. Select Create Scenario on the top ribbon.

2. Provide a Name, optionally, a Description, and select Create.

   

3. Select Edit on the top ribbon:

   

4. Start completing your Plan with your planned targets:

   

   Note

   These steps done via the GUI can also be achieved by using Master Data Package or API if it is integrated with an external system.

5. At the end, select Save on the top ribbon.

6. Select Release on the top ribbon, confirm the page information and select Release for your plan to take effect:

   

7. Plan values are displayed as 0 of X, this is, there are currently no actual plan values because no Material has been processed:

   

   Note

   There are two possible view modes, Actual Quantity | Actual Percentage, and if you select a plan time frame item, a Summary view is displayed on the right:

   

8. From your Plan go to Views, followed by Details.

9. Select Volume Counting Steps, open the Step and place your Material in the Step.

Process Material#

1. The Plan will be updated with the actual quantities whenever the Material is moved to a Plan Counting Step, if:

   • it matches the Product or Product Group of a Plan Item.
   • its Units match the Units of the Plan, if defined.
   • its Material Type does not match any of the Excluded Material Types of the Plan.

   In which case, the Plan will be updated with its quantity.

   Note

   If no Unit is defined, the Primary Quantity of the Material will be considered; if it is defined, the Primary or Secondary Quantity will be used, depending on which of the Units of the Material match it.

   

   Note

   The most recent data can also be accessed in the Summary view.

2. To see what the Planned Values were when a certain Plan Scenario was released, access the Plan Scenarios section and open the intended scenario:

   

Plan Item State#

The color shown at the top of each time frame item indicates its execution state as described below:

Plan Status Overview Dashboard#

A Dashboards View button is available on the top ribbon:

This dashboard shows a summary of the most recent time frames: