Advanced planning system

The Advanced Planning System (APS) generates real-time projections of when you can complete orders by comparing all demands (such as customer orders) against a long-term plan. The system views the current status of inventory levels, forecasts, job schedules, PO due dates, customer orders, etc. and creates planned orders accordingly to satisfy the demands. You then "firm" the planned orders into purchase orders, purchase requisitions, job orders, production schedules, or transfer orders.

The long-term plan includes information such as:

• Demand orders that consume inventory and resource capacity.
• Supply orders that add to inventory.
• Each operation in the plan.
• Each item in the plan.
• The projected completion date for every planned order.
• Each resource allocated to a job.
• Scheduled operations (for work orders in which the resource usage is frozen).
• Every lateness cause for every demand in the plan.

Below is a discussion of infinite vs. finite resources and their affect on planning, the details of pull and push planning, and a description of the steps required to setup APS, with Step 2 being to Specify the Planning Parameters. That step is the focus of the remainder of the document, describing how to configure APS to obtain the maximum benefit from the system.