Re: MRP Dates Education

Al ... Not sure I got all of what you were explaining, but two thoughts came to
mind.  If I understand that you're not planning all the way through the bill
correctly, check the low level codes for each subassembly in the IIM file.  The
code should be at least as high as how far down the subassembly is (did I say
that right?  sounds confusing!)  ... this tells MRP how far down to dig.  We
have this happen periodically, and running BOM900 will clear up the levels.  The
second thing you might want to check out, if your looking for some additional
training material, are some manuals offered by Unbeaten Path in Wisconsin
(414-681-3151).  We just purchased a CAP manual from them, that is a great
improvement over the limited stuff we got with our original BPCS training
manuals.  I believe they also have one for MRP.

Lisa Abney





MacWheel99@aol.com on 10/14/99 02:54:26 PM

Please respond to BPCS-L@midrange.com

To:   BPCS-L@midrange.com (BPCS Users Discussion Group)
cc:   jcoop@midwest.net (Jerry Cooper) (bcc: Lisa
      Abney/Flavor-Indianapolis/NAFL/UFC)

Subject:  MRP Dates Education



Do we have a correct understanding here & what if anything are we doing wrong?

We run our MRP500 & MRP600 regeneration every week night using a planning
date of the Monday of the current week being planned, in which each of our 4
facilities are planned individually & we run CAP600 twice a week using a
horizon date of the Monday two weeks into the future, in which all facilities
are planned as a group run.  Our Time Buckets are in 7 day intervals.

We recently promoted some individuals within planning departments & the new
folks have been asking reasonable questions like "How am I supposed to be
able to know this or that?" which has led to other people questioning whether
we are doing things the best way, and whether our general in-house education
in how MRP works is satisfactory.  I have read the MRP & CAP & SYS
documentation from cover to cover several times & I still do not feel like I
understand it all.  I think I need a class in general principles of MRP
irrespective of BPCS, followed by a class in that portion of MRP lingo that
BPCS uses how.

Tuesday of this week, the Customer Sales dept entered our first order on a
new part, that the customer needed rather urgently, and overtime was
authorized to avoid damage from lead time violation.  Tues nite's MRP full
regeneration got the 1st & 2nd level sub-assemblies planned correctly, but
down around levels 4 & 5 there were requirements outside the Demand Time
Fence for materials we had never used before & the MRP essentially said
"that's overdue, cannot be manufactured in the past, ignore it, don't even
try to plan it." so it did not go on the production schedule, or raw
materials needing to be purchased.

Wednesday, a Production Planner, who had been told that this was the first
run of a new part & who knew that this happens with first runs when there are
short lead times imposed by the customer, went to the BOM & manually planned
shop orders for all the materials needed for the new part.  Wednesday night's
MRP correctly planned the new customer requirements right down to all the
lowest components, because the activity flag had been triggered by the
Production Planner's release of the items missing from Tuesday night MRP.
Our Production people know from experience that this is a problem only on the
first run of a new part ... later orders from that customer for that part
will go through the MRP correctly, even when the cumulative lead time drives
needs into last week or beyond.

There's talk of running MRP using a planning date of a week prior to the
current week, but on complex parts 1 week into the past might not be enough
... only rare certain customer parts have this problem.  Someone told me that
the sales dept is supposed to TELL ME to run MRP with an earlier date
whenever this scenario occurs, but they have NEVER told me any such thing, so
I believe that the person who thinks the sales dept is supposed to do such
notifications is in fact misinformed.  Someone else told me that ALL lead
times are a certain way, when it is apparent from the system that they are
misinformed.  So obviously we have had some break-downs in corporate memory
of what our procedures are supposed to be.  I suspect we need some kind of
report listing stuff that could not be planned by MRP because it is in
violation of the business rules.

Our staffing is such that Purchase Planning Human review is once a week per
facility & Shop Floor Planning Human review is twice a week per facility,
unless the Sales Department provides notification of the need to check out
the consequences of a scenario like this one.  In this case, the Sales Dept
did in fact notify the Planning departments, and the system worked correctly.
 The problem is in the training of new people to recognize all the exceptions
to general rules & a review of why do we have to have these work-arounds.

Al Macintyre
BPCS 405 CD on AS/436 V4R3
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