Capacity planning and scheduling

Capacity planning and scheduling

• General capacity planning
• Capacity planning in parts requirements
• Capacity planning of employee resources

Related topics

• Capacity utilisation
• Capacity planning
• Operations calendar

General capacity planning

Planning the capacity for a resource is always done in 3 steps (please refer to the links to the different sections for more details on each topic):

Step 1: Set the available capacity of the resource

Capacity planning determines how much working time is available at a resource for dispatching.

Step 2: Planning of requirements

The planning of requirements depends on the type of resource: Workstations, work groups and machines are posted via posted work plans in production, employees only via service provider groups in quotations, orders and service assignments.

Step 3: Overview of the planned capacity:

Via the capacity utilisation or the work list, the planned requirements of the resources can be viewed or compared against its available capacity, e.g. to identify bottlenecks in time and to be able to avoid them by rescheduling.
Rescheduling can be circumvented in production, e.g. by external work sequences or by ordering parts that were actually produced in-house. There are a number of other possibilities to avoid a bottleneck in production. A few keywords: alternative resource, rescheduling, flexible disposition, provision of materials...
In the case of service provider groups, a bottleneck is only possible by reassigning the performing employee or by rescheduling the appointment.

Capacity planning in parts requirements

ClassiX® offers two options for scheduling:

1. Detailed planning taking into account material and capacity bottlenecks
2. Rough planning without automatically bypassing bottlenecks.

Capacity check CTP

Usual procedure with desired detailed planning:

• Creation of the Gozintograph via the parts disposition
• Start automatic scheduling either forward from a start date or backward from the internal provision date.
  The following check or correction options can be set
  • Check material bottlenecks at planned dates (ATP)
  • Check capacity bottlenecks on scheduled dates (CTP)
  • Avoid capacity bottlenecks at planned dates by postponing deadlines
  • Terminate without gaps
• After scheduling, a message appears to indicate whether the delivery date entered on the order item can be met with the current scheduling
• Test results also appear when bottlenecks should be checked. If these bottlenecks have not been bypassed automatically (there is a stop sign at the top of the list), these bottlenecks must be cleared manually. For this purpose, depending on the type of bottleneck, either the MRP account, the stock movements or the stock levels in case of material bottlenecks, or the worklist, the capacity utilisation or the capacity overview can be started via the toolbar to illustrate current requirements.
• Once the rough planning has been made, the production orders can be processed further. Here the work plans are now broken down and, if necessary, processed by the AV.
• Once this has been done, the automatic scheduling of the parts request enables detailed planning to be carried out on schedule, taking into account all capacity bottlenecks (CTP).
• If the capacitive scheduling is suitable, the missing material can be taken care of using the graphical scheduling.

  Here the dates can be shifted with the mouse as bars until there is sufficient stock material available on the required date.

  Material bottlenecks for which procurement has not yet been initiated must be resolved by initiating early parts planning, which means that

  • an order must be placed for a stocked purchased part with a date prior to the date of material requirements This would solve the problem of excess material.
  • For a stock-keeping production part , a stock replenishment order with an internal provision date must be created and planned before the requirement date.

In brief, the process is as follows:

• Automatic scheduling (rough planning)
• Further processing of the production orders -> creation/change of the work plans
• Automatic scheduling taking into account capacity bottlenecks
• Manual graphical scheduling to avoid material bottlenecks

Usual procedure with sufficient rough planning

• Creation of the Gozintograph via the parts disposition
• Scheduling via automatic or graphical scheduling
• Creation of production orders and work plans
  

Capacity test CTP Functionality

The capacity is defined on the basis of given available hours within a calendar week of a work centre or resource. Each routing item that requires this work center and/or resource adds its expected capacity requirements to the workload of the work center/resource. If the booked requirement plus the requirement to be checked is greater than the planned capacity, there is a bottleneck and the capacity check returns a message about insufficient capacity.

Work sequences can extend over several calendar weeks.

A work sequence can be spread over several calendar weeks if it has a throughput time of 2 days and starts on a Friday. The total target time is then divided by the number of days and then multiplied by the number of days required in the current calendar week. This results in the proportionally required capacity, in this example the first week has exactly 50% of the target time, the second week also 50%.

Via the editing mask of the exploded work plans, the exact booking can be displayed via context menu (Show bookings) - a new window opens with the list of booked resources with proportional capacity in the respective calendar week and a coloured box indicating whether sufficient capacity is available.

Capacity planning of employee resources

Setting the basic capacity of an employee:

The planning of staff resources is just as important in mechanical engineering companies (planning of engineers, electricians etc.) as it is in service companies (fitters etc.).

Each employee is allocated a daily available working time (capacity) depending on the working time model assigned to him/her.
The first step is to assign the working time model to the employee via the employee mask. For this purpose, a let-time number must be assigned on the mask.

Then the employee is assigned to his working groups. Then the basic capacity in a period (year) must be saved for him via the mask "capacity planning".

In capacity planning it is possible to determine the capacity from the working time model assigned to this employee.

If the employee has been assigned the basic capacity, the already planned absences (holidays, training course etc.) or other events that do not count as absence (emergency service) can be entered via the employee mask.

Scheduling of tasks

There are two approaches to scheduling tasks, which make sense depending on the work area.
For example, service companies that plan their staff based on spontaneous calls from customers are more likely to use the process described below as path 1, while equipment manufacturers who want to schedule their engineers for large projects are more likely to use the process described below as path 3.

Path 1 - Service provider group - Service intervention:
This way is the faster and easier of the two. Here the employee to be scheduled is entered with the duration and the date directly on a service assignment itemor service provider group and this is booked directly into capacity planning. Otherwise the order can be empty, it only contains the service deployment item at the time of the order confirmation. When the fitter has performed the work, the order items, such as the kilometres travelled, the material consumed, etc., are added below the service provider group for cost determination and revenue accounting.

Path 2 - Work orders below order items:
The second way is to create the complete order structure and to see from it how much time an engineer will probably need. The time of the individual work areas is included in the order as a service on normal order items.
If the capacity is now to be planned, i.e. order processing is to begin in the foreseeable future, work orders are created for these order items, on which the employee to be scheduled is then entered with the duration and date (also period).

Flexitime days
Flexitime absences can be entered via the employee mask. These are then displayed in the overview with a blue symbol with a white square. This should then mean that the employee is free (blue means no capacity due to holidays, illness or other absence), but can be contacted in case of bottlenecks. For this reason, there is a different symbol for the "flexitime" absence than for all other full-day absences where the reason cannot be identified.
Emergency services
The emergency service is also determined by an employee's absence. The overview then checks whether the employee has an emergency service on the first Monday shown and displays this in red under the employee name in the list. The emergency services are always valid per week in the usual cases.