Assign Capacity

Resource Capacity Reservation supports finite planning of orders on resources so that the plan is both feasible in terms of not exceeding the available capacities and compliant with the target dates for the demands with the least possible delay – preferably with no delay at all.

Master Production Scheduling (MPS) focuses on optimizing planning decisions within a horizon of more than a few days to about once to twice the order lead-time. MPS schedules in a rough-cut manner appropriate for tactical planning decisions. Resource Capacity Reservation in MPS applies the following three important concepts:

  1. Scheduling Space: There is no sequencing of the operations on resources. However, we need to take into account the level of difficulty to create efficient sequences in the Scheduler.
  2. Combined resources: There is no assignment of operations to resources. Instead, operations are planned on a set of allowed resources, called Resource Groups. The definitive resource assignments and sequencing of operations are the Scheduler's responsibility.
  3. Bucketed capacity: Since operations are not sequenced on resources, the required capacity needs to be evaluated differently rather than aggregating the production, set-up, and idle times. Instead, a specified time bucket level evaluates capacity use. Ensuring an equal distribution of tasks within a time bucket is a planning decision left to the Scheduler.

Bucketed Capacity Planning

Typically, MPS plans operations to complete “just in time.” This means that all operations are planned at the last possible moment. MPS uses a mathematical optimizer to minimize the overall delay of orders while solving any overloads. In the event that there is more demand for capacity on bottleneck resources then what is available, orders or operations, or both, may need to be delayed or pulled forward.

MPS also supports infinite planning capability where operations may be planned without being constrained by capacity limitations. This can be useful where capacity on some or all resources must never be considered a limitation, but where over planning against these resources is useful to monitor load to warn planners when certain resources are nearing or beyond capacity limits. In these cases, the planning decision taken must be to increase capacity on the overloaded resources until the overload is resolved.

Both finite and infinite capacity plannings take resource efficiency and availability into consideration. Planned holidays, downtime, and inefficiencies are subtracted from the available capacity.

You can visualize aggregate utilization on resources in the Capacity Overview. Resource utilization is presented in configurable time buckets that can also indicate frozen periods, planned downtime, lateness ratios, and work in process inventory levels. Time bucket nodes are selectable to drill down on supporting resource assignment detail and related operations.