How does Capacity Planning work?

Summary 

This article walks through the Capacity Planning screen in StockIQ, its functionality and a suggested process for capacity planning. 

Applies To

To use the Capacity Planning screen, you will need to coordinate with your IT department and StockIQ support to load in the required data files so that StockIQ knows about your resources, resource capacity, and resource bill.

Once these data files have been loaded, when you load the Capacity Planning screen, StockIQ will present you with a list of resources from which you can select.  Select one and then click "Apply".  You can access the list of resources in the "Display" options button at the top right of the screen.

Process 

The StockIQ Capacity Planning screen displays the load on your various resources, so that you can monitor and plan for the capacity that you have in your production lines and vendors.  You can adjust your resource load by moving production of items around, which has the effect of modifying the underlying purchase plans.  In this way, you can solve or reduce capacity constraint problems, and end up with a locked purchase plan that your suppliers can actually act upon.

It is accessible by clicking to Purchase --> Capacity Planning.

NOTE: This capacity planning feature is what is referred to as "Finite Capacity Rough Cut Capacity Planning", meaning that this is not a discrete machine-by-machine shop floor planning tool, but a higher level, overall capacity viewing and capacity planning tool.

NOTE: This topic is for manufacturing or vendor capacity.  If you want information on warehouse capacity limits for items, see the Item Warehouse Capacity and Shelf Life Planning screen instead.

Resource Load Summary

Once you have selected a resource, at the top of the capacity planning screen is the resource load summary.  This is a grid of the buckets of capacity defined in your resource capacity data feed, e.g. each month or week's worth of capacity for a given resource.

Clicking on any particular row will show you the resource load detail for that capacity bucket, e.g. the resource capacity used in that given month or week's worth of capacity - see "Resource Load Detail" below.

Take particular note of the "Capacity Remaining" column and the "% Capacity Used" columns, which will show you if you are over or under your capacity for that resource.  As you make edits to your resource usage in each bucket, these percentages will shift around.

Below is a listing of the columns in the grid:

• Start Date - Start date for one of the capacity buckets. 
• End Date - end date for the associated capacity buckets.  Typically the capacity buckets are weeks or months of capacity on this resource.  Capacity buckets are assumed to be aligned with ship dates, e.g. when StockIQ assigns load to the resource, it is done based on the ship date of the planned release/shipment/receipt.
• Capacity - The capacity for the resource in this capacity bucket
• Capacity UoM - The unit of measure of that capacity, e.g. are we talking hours, cubes, units, etc.
• Quantity - These measures are showing quantity produced in terms of your stocking UoM of the items against this resource
  • Firm Qty - Firm quantity on order against this resource on open supply orders.  The date used for counting firm quantity consumption against the resource is the Expected Ship Date of the order.
  • Planned Qty - Planned quantity (i.e. order suggestions from StockIQ) of load against this resource.  As with the firm quantity, the quantity is "counted against" the capacity based on the expected ship date of the order.
  • Total Qty - The total of the firm and planned load on this resource.
• Consumption - These measures are showing quantity produced in terms of your capacity measure of the resource, e.g. the units, hours, etc.
  • Firm Consumption - Firm consumption of the resource, based on actual open supply orders, using the resource bill to translate quantity to resource load.  The date used for counting firm quantity consumption against the resource is the Expected Ship Date of the order.
  • Planned Consumption - Planned consumption of the resource (i.e. order suggestions from StockIQ), using the resource bill to translate quantity to resource load.  As with the firm quantity, the consumption amount is "counted against" the capacity based on the expected ship date of the order.
  • Total Consumption - The total of the firm and planned capacity load on this resource.
• Capacity Remaining - Amount of production capacity remaining in this bucket for this resource, stated in terms of the resource's production UoM.
• % Capacity Used - The percent of capacity of this resource used in this capacity bucket time period.

Resource Load Detail

The resource load detail grid shows all item-sites that are consuming resource capacity for the given resource capacity time period you have selected in the Resource Load Summary.  

The columns shown in this grid are similar to what are shown in the summary, except that they are specific to the particular item and site:

• Edited? - Shows if you have un-saved edits for this resource load detail record, e.g. you have moved product or changed production quantity
• Locked - This shows a lock icon if production in this bucket is locked due to a locked production plan.  You can right-click and select "Show Lock Info..." to see schedule lock information for the selected Item-Site-Supplier in the Schedule Lock Info Popup.
• Item - The Item # being produced
• Site - Ultimate destination for where this item needs to go.  You may see multiple sites for the same item to be produced in the same bucket.
• ABC - ABC of the item-site
• On Demand Quantity - How much is on open demand orders for this item.  Helps you prioritize items for which customers are currently waiting on product.
• Days Cycle Stock - How many of days of cycle stock you will have on the receipt date that corresponds to the capacity bucket end date.  If product shipped on the capacity bucket end date, it will be received somewhat later (Shipping LT + Putaway LT), and your days of cycle stock on this day allows you to see how soon that item would need to be ordered.  This number does not included proposed production quantity, it is based on only firm PO's and forecasted demand.
• Quantity - These measures are showing quantity produced in terms of your stocking UoM of the items against this resource
  • Firm - Firm quantity on order against this resource on open supply orders for this item.  The date used for counting firm quantity consumption against the resource is the Expected Ship Date of the order.  Clicking on the quantity will show you order detail for that item.
  • Planned - Planned quantity (i.e. order suggestions from StockIQ) of load against this resource.  As with the firm quantity, the quantity is "counted against" the capacity based on the expected ship date of the order.  You can view this in the Order Schedule if you wish.
  • Total - The total of the firm and planned load on this resource in terms of the item's UoM
• Consumption - These measures are showing quantity produced in terms of your capacity measure of the resource, e.g. the units, hours, etc.
  • Firm - Firm consumption of the resource, based on actual open supply orders, using the resource bill to translate quantity to resource load.  The date used for counting firm quantity consumption against the resource is the Expected Ship Date of the order.
  • Planned - Planned consumption of the resource (i.e. order suggestions from StockIQ), using the resource bill to translate quantity to resource load.  As with the firm quantity, the consumption amount is "counted against" the capacity based on the expected ship date of the order.
  • Total - The total of the firm and planned capacity load on this resource.
• % Capacity Used - The percent of this resource's capacity used by this item-site in the selected period.

Modifying Resource Load

When you first load the resource load detail for a given resource and capacity bucket, what you see is an "Unconstrained Plan", e.g. what StockIQ wishes you could make if there were no capacity constraints on production capacity.

If you have a resource bucket where you are over capacity, you can modify the production plan.  At a high level, it works like this:

1. Find an item whose production you want to reduce, or move to a different bucket and modify it using the "Edit Production..." button.
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2. When production is moved, the underlying plan of order releases (such as you would see in the Place Orders screen and Order Schedule) is modified, and the resulting change on the resource load is recalculated across all resource capacity buckets.
3. As you make changes, everything is kept in a temporary state until you explicitly save your changes.
4. A note will be shown at the top of the screen indicating you have un-saved changes to your plan.

Selecting an item to move

When you've identified a period that is over capacity, you can move an item.  Some ideas on how to select which items to move or reduce:

• move low volume items, e.g. class C, D, X
• move items out if there are no customer orders
• move items out if they have non-negative days cycle stock on arrival

Editing Production

Once you've chosen an item, select it, and click the "Edit Production" button to open the Edit Production dialog box.  After you complete your change, the resource load summary and the resource load detail will update.

You will notice that your edited row picks up a checkbox in the "Edited?" column, and also will show a lock for having made a change to the unconstrained plan, and now you have a user-created lock on the schedule for that item in place:

NOTE: Nothing has been saved at this point, this is just StockIQ telling you about the changes that you are working on.

IMPORTANT: When you make a resource load change, StockIQ locks the schedule for that item up to and including any release date that corresponds with the end date of your capacity bucket.  This prevents any new releases being scheduled that could slot into the same capacity bucket and take you back over capacity again.

If you select a row for which you have changes and click the Order Schedule Compare... option, you can see the "before" and "after" effects of your edits on the projected inventory levels of that particular item:

As you go through and make changes, you will find that eventually your resource load is no longer above 100%.  Continue working through your changes until you are happy with the plan.

When the screen loads, it will show you an order schedule and a sawtooth.  The left-hand side is your order schedule that is your current saved plan, and the right side shows the modified plan that you have edited.

You can use the "Interval" select box to change from Daily/Weekly/Monthly intervals.

In particular, note the differences on the sawtooth in projected available quantity, as well as on the order schedule, as this is where the main effect will be of moving your replenishment schedules around via the Edit Production Dialog of the Capacity Planning screen.

Saving Your Plan

After you have made whatever changes you want to make, when you are satisfied with the plan, you can then save it.  Up until this point, all changes are temporary and in the browser only.

To save, click the Edit menu, and click "Save Resource Load Plan". 

When you do this, the following actions occur:

1. StockIQ takes all the resource load edits you have made and translates these into changes in the underlying order suggestions for each item-site-supplier.
2. These changes are saved as locked schedule information for those item-site supplier, so those schedules become fixed until the unlock date.  The unlock date is the release date that corresponds with the ship date for the end of that capacity bucket.
3. Order schedules are recalculated for each affected item-site-supplier, including very likely new order suggestions from the lock date and beyond on any items you have locked.
4. Resource load is then recalculated and saved so the Resource Capacity screen updates.
5. The new plan is now your starting point, and when you re-load the Resource Capacity screen, no records will show as being edited.  Any locked items will show that they have a lock and you can view the saved lock information.

That is all that is required!  Over time, StockIQ will continue to function as usual, making replenishment suggestions for your products.  Any locks you have saved StockIQ will honor - no modifications will be made to the replenishment plan for an item inside the lock date.  Any new plans will be from the unlock date and forwards.  Projected Available messages will be generated regardless of if an item is locked or not. You can then continue to re-run the capacity planning screen as the weeks and months go by to modify your production plan as necessary.