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:
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. |