WORK FLOW & PROCEDURE FOR FOR SNP CAPACITY LEVELLING HEURISTICS RUN

Question

Dear Sir / Madam,
Currently, we are  taking  only SNP Heuristics Run  and the output viz. planned stock transfer requisitions are being passed to PPDS as such. But now we feel, SNP capacity leveling can play a vital role in getting more fine tuned results from PPDS. So, We wants to start using the SNP Capacity leveling run. We shall like to know the work flow / procedure for taking the SNP capacity level run i.e. what inputs should be properly reviewed before taking the SNP capacity level run and what shall  be its output..? Kindly let us know the procedure / work flow for taking the SNP Capacity Levelling Run.
Your early reply in this regard shall be really appreciable.
Thanks & Best Regards,
Sanjeev Chugh
25-Mar-10

Answer 1

Hi Sanjeev,
as in any other module, correct master will play a key role in getting effective results in capacity levelling. you will need to check the following master data while setting the system for capacity levelling :
Consistency in BOM in R/3 and PPM/PDS
Consistency in Routing in R/3 and PPM/PDS - the actual through put on the shop floor should be the same as that in the routing and in the PPM/PDS. unless this is in sync, no amount of levelling can return good results.
Maintenance of shift - again as present in the shop floor.
you can provide the dump of the above master data and ask the shop floor engineers to validate the data as it exists in the ssytem. you can do the consistency check between R/3 and APO yourself using queries. Once they have validated this master data and the the actual master data reflects in your system, i think, the job is more than 50 % complete.
also you need to check the lot sizes, rounding profiles, and period factor, becasue all three combined play a major role in giving good or better results after levelling.
you may also check at what level you want to run the levelling. whther the bottleneck is at the finished component level, or 2nd level, etc. you may check whther you have discrete manufacuring or REM and if you really want to levelling on REM order.
then you need to analyse, what is the lengh of horizon you want to run the capacity leveling on. sometimes it makes no sense to run on the entire horizon because if capcities are already overlaoded, you will not achieve the desired results.
hence depending upon the level of your understanding and comfort of the planner (who will be using this result), the horizon can be increased grdually.
if you are starting to implemement capcity levelling, you can sumulate runs and show the results to the planner and check if the standard capacity heursitics satisfies their requirement. else you can go for custom requirement.
you will also have to decide on the stratagies, priorities,etc based on the business requirement.
i think the above should give some starting direction to implement capcaity levelling in your system.
award points if you find this useful.
Rgds, Sandeep
Edited by: Sandeep Budhiraja on Mar 25, 2010 11:49 AM