24 Overview to Multi-Level Master Scheduling

This chapter contains these topics:

Section 24.1, "Objectives,"
Section 24.2, "About Multi-Level Master Scheduling."

24.1 Objectives

To understand planning bills
To set up order policy rules for reordering inventory
To classify the types of items that you stock
To define the percentage of demand for a specified feature based on projected sales
To generate a multi-level master schedule

24.2 About Multi-Level Master Scheduling

You set up and generate multi-level master schedules to:

Define demand information on a family basis and make changes as needed
Define planning bills to acquire the options and features you expect to sell
Update a product plan with a change in customer demand or design specifications
Customize your schedule generation to include only the information you require
Explode planned orders down to component items

Multi-level master schedules support assemble-to-order production and delivery.

When several different material purchasing options are available, your planners can make informed decisions within the available time frame. The system uses planning bills to notify planners when special attention is needed.

Multi-level master scheduling consists of the following tasks:

Setting up multi-level master schedules
Generating multi-level master schedules

The system records multi-level master schedule information in the following tables:

Table	Description
Bill of Materials Master (F3002)	Contains warehouse or plant level information about bills of materials, such as costs and quantities of components, features and options, and levels of detail for each bill.
Item Master (F4101)	Contains basic information about each item defined to inventory, such as item numbers, description, alpha description, category codes, and units of measure.
Item Branch (F4102)	Contains warehouse or plant level information, such as costs, quantities, physical location, and branch level category codes.

24.2.1 What Are Planning Bills?

Planning bills are groups of items in a bill of material format that reflect how an item is sold. Planning bills help you manage the acquisition of a variety of options and features that might be included in a saleable end item.

Planning bills allow you to configure a "pseudo" end item. With a pseudo item you don't have to assign a unique part number or maintain a bill of materials for every combination of options and features that might be included in the end product.

You define planning bills to acquire the options and features in the proportion that you expect to sell. A final assembly schedule coordinates the material selection and assembly after you order the product options.

An example of this is an automobile with engine options:

Figure 24-1 Engine Options Planning Bill

Description of "Figure 24-1 Engine Options Planning Bill"

A part number can be assigned to the engine feature for planning purposes. Obviously, the two engine options cannot be assembled together, so the engine feature never actually exists in inventory. It is a pseudo item.

The planner does not know which automobile will ship with which engine next month, but the ratio of engines consumed is fairly constant. The above planning bill of material identifies the percentages of each type of engine that you expect to ship.

By exploding this bill against the master schedule for the T1000 family of automobiles, the system can calculate the total requirements for each type of engine.

24.2.2 Example: Exploding Planned Orders

You use a planning bill to configure a pseudo parent item that represents the engine feature. The engine feature includes both V-8 and V-6 engines, and can never actually exist in inventory. It is a pseudo item. The stocking type, however, identifies the engine feature in the planning bill of material as a phantom. Phantoms call for a special type of processing where the leadtime is zero and the order policy is lot-for-lot.

In this example, the system uses phantom processing to pass planned order releases from the parent (T1000 automobile) directly through to the planned order releases of the engine feature. The system uses the feature planning percentages to explode the planned order releases for the engine feature down to the gross requirements for V-8 and V-6 engines.

Figure 24-2 Planned Order

Description of "Figure 24-2 Planned Order"

MRP acquires the required engine components, such as pistons, blocks, and so on, in order to build these engines. When you receive an order for a T1000 automobile with a specific combination of options, the desired engine is committed to the saleable end item after you attach the parts list to the final assembly work order.