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Repetitive schedules represent planned supply for repetitive assemblies in the same way that planned orders represent planned supply for discretely planned assemblies. The difference, however, is that repetitive schedules are defined using daily rates; whereas planned orders are defined using discrete quantities. Also, the daily rates defined for repetitive schedules represent supply for each workday between the repetitive schedule start and end dates. The discrete quantities defined for planned orders represent supply for a single date, the planned order due date, only.

There is another important difference between repetitive planning and discrete planning. The repetitive planning process always suggests new aggregate repetitive schedules that replace current aggregated schedules to satisfy net requirements for a given planning period. This is different from discrete planning where, if net requirements exist, the planning process suggests planned orders to supplement existing scheduled receipts.

In repetitive planning, therefore, suggested repetitive schedules alone match net requirements within a repetitive planning period. With discrete planning, it is the summation of planned orders and existing orders that always match net requirements for the same period.

Unlike the reschedule recommendations that the planning process generates for discrete jobs, the repetitive planning process never recommends that current repetitive schedules defined in Oracle Work in Process be rescheduled. Instead, it always recommends a set of new suggested repetitive schedules that satisfy current net requirements.

The reason for this lies in the way in which repetitive schedules are defined. Since repetitive schedules are defined by a daily rate, a start date and an end date, if the repetitive planning process were to recommend new daily rates and new start and end dates, as it would do if it were recommending that a repetitive schedule be rescheduled, it would essentially be defining a new schedule.

The following diagram illustrates the difference between repetitive planning and discrete planning in terms of total supply and demand.