Enforce Capacity Constraints Within a Specified Time Window

In a constrained supply plan, it is desirable to reduce the time taken by the supply planning processes by reducing the volume of calculations that must be performed.

With this update, a time window is provided in the constrained supply plan during which the resource or supplier capacity is considered as constraint. The planning system considers capacity as unconstrained outside the time window. You can define this time window using the parameter Number of Days Constraints Are Enforced on the Plan Options page. This feature helps you to reduce the planning cycle time by restricting the material and capacity constraint calculations to only the time horizon that your business requires.

You can define the parameter Number of Days Constraints Are Enforced by navigating to:

Create/Edit Plan Options -> Supply tab -> Constraints and Decision Rules subtab.

New plan option: Number of Days Constraints Are Enforced

This field is enabled if either of the options, "Enforce resource capacity constraints" or "Enforce supplier capacity constraints" is selected. Provide the number of days during which you want the constrained supply plan to enforce capacity constraints. Outside this time window, the capacity is considered as unconstrained.
By default, the option is not selected, which means that constraints are enforced for the entire plan horizon.
Number of Days Constraints are Enforced is defined in straight calendar days. Every day is counted. There are no exclusions for weekends, holidays, and other non-working days.
If the number of days end in the middle of an aggregate bucket such as a week or a period, then capacity constraints are considered for that entire bucket.
Outside this time window, the resource or supplier capacity can be overloaded by virtue of being unconstrained. Supply planning will generate respective overload exceptions.
Outside the constrained time window, the resources will be loaded within the processing lead time of the item.

Let’s look into a couple of use cases for this feature:

Use Case 1:

Consider the following setup:

Item: RA_ASSY, Processing Lead Time = 4 days, all other lead times are 0.
Resource: RA_RES1
Producing each unit of Item RA_ASSY requires 1 hour on resource RA_RES1. Resource RA_RES1 is having an 8-hour shift.
The new plan option Number of Days Constraints Are Enforced is set to 5 days.

After running a constrained supply plan with the option Enforce resource capacity constraints selected, the output is as shown in the figure. Since the capacity is considered as unconstrained after day 5, resources can be overloaded to satisfy the demand on time.

Supplies and Demands

In this case, the first demand on day 2 is satisfied late on day 4 as resource capacity can’t be violated within the constrained time window. The planned order created on day 4, will have a suggested start date on day 1 and suggested due date on day 4.

The demand on day 11, is satisfied on time but resources are overloaded within the lead time of the item. The planned order created on day 11, will have a suggested start date on day 8 and suggested due date on day 11. In this case, the supply plan will not look into the available capacity in previous buckets but load the resources within the processing lead time of the item.

Similar is the case with demand on day 19, where demand is satisfied on time as the resource is unconstrained but is overloaded on day 19. The supply plan will generate a resource overload exception on day 19.

Following is the resource plan:

Resource Plan

Use Case 2:

Consider the following setup:

Item: RA_ASSY, No lead time, Organization: M1
This item is sourced from a supplier/supplier site which has a daily capacity of 10 units.
Number of Days Constraints Are Enforced = 7

After running a constrained supply plan with Enforce supplier capacity constraints checked, following would be the output:

Supplies and Demands with Supplier Capacity Constraint

The first demand on day 3 is satisfied late on day 5 as the supplier capacity constraints can't be violated within the constraint time window. For second demand on day 5, the capacity can't be violated on day 6 and day 7, but on day 8 it can be overloaded. In this case, the capacity is overloaded by 20 units (the planned order on day 8 will consume the capacity on day6, day 7, day 8 and overload the capacity on day 8). Similarly, the demand on day 11 is met on time by overloading the supplier capacity. Supply plan will generate supplier capacity overload exception on day 8 and day 11.

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Supply Chain Planning

Tips And Considerations

If you want to use the Enforce Capacity Constraints Within a Specified Time Window feature, then you must opt in to its parent feature: Constraint-Based Planning. If you’ve already opted in to this parent feature, then you don’t have to opt in again.

You should set the constraint time window to that many days in which your business requires to enforce resource or supplier capacity as a constraint.
This feature is applicable when you have enforced the resource or supplier capacity constraints in a plan.
Lead times would still be considered as a hard constraint. Supplies can be satisfied late outside constraint time window in case of a lead time constraint.
Outside of the constraint time window, if there are any overloads on resource or supplier capacity, a supply plan will not generate the exceptions, Resource Capacity Constraint and Supply Capacity Constraint.

Access Requirements

Users who are assigned a configured job role that contains these privileges can access this feature:

Edit Plans (MSC_EDIT_PLANS_PRIV)
Run Plan with Snapshot (MSC_RUN_PLAN_WITH_SNAPSHOT_PRIV)
Monitor Supply Planning Work Area (MSC_MONITOR_SUPPLY_PLANNING_WORK_AREA_PRIV)

These privileges were available prior to this update.