Understanding Kanban Replenishment Capacity

The Kanban Replenishment Capacity program (R30470) enables you to track the production capacity of a kanban and compare it to the demand pattern of the item on the kanban for a period of time that you specify. The demand is taken as the raw demand from the material requirements planning (MRP) time series. The system calculates the production capacity of a kanban, based on a kanban ID, assuming that the check-out is completed on the start date that is specified. It then calculates the demand for the specified period of time. The system writes all kanbans that cannot meet the demand to a new table and displays an alert. The system clears the Kanban Replenishment Capacity table (F3019) every time that you run the Kanban Replenishment Capacity program.

The system calculates the inventory shortfall or excess:

(Kanban capacity) = (kanban size) × (number of cycles) × (number of kanban records that are similar)

(Number of cycles) = [(number of months) × (number of weeks) × (number of days)] ÷ [(scan delta days) + (leadtime delivery (days))]

If the item number, consuming branch/plant, consuming location, supplying branch/plant, and supplying location are the same, then the kanban capacity and demand are the same for those records.

The number of units by which the inventory exceeds or falls short of the demand is then associated with each kanban master. The system provides a report of the total kanban capacity compared to the total kanban demand.

When the demand exceeds the production capacity, it leads to an inventory shortfall. A shortfall of inventory indicates that the demand taken into account during the kanban size calculation is different from the demand taken into account during the shortfall measurement. The inventory manager can react to the shortfall based on the quantity by which the system falls short of inventory and the nature of the increase in demand. When the inventory falls short by a small quantity, the inventory manager might decide not to react at all. When the shortfall is too high, then the inventory manager might react to it based on the nature of the increase in demand. When the increase in demand is a temporary spike, then the inventory manager can add an ad hoc card to the system. When the demand is permanent, then the inventory manager might run the Kanban Size Calculation program (R30450) to update the sizes.

Note: When the system identifies an inventory starvation situation, the kanban size is too low. Also, when a lot of ad hoc cards appear in the system, the size calculation is a poor representation of the demand. In these instances, the inventory manager should run the Kanban Size Calculation program to adjust the kanban size.