Consolidating Planned Orders

The APS system creates one planned order for each requirement that is not satisfied by existing on-hand inventory or other receipts. You can consolidate these planned orders into more manageable increments by specifying parameters on the Planning Parameters form and on the Items form.

The consolidation options allow you to generalize the planning detail progressively as the planned orders are due later. For example, you may want to plan carefully all requirements due within the week, but group everything due after that into larger groups that are easier to track.

The system follows these steps to determine how to combine the planned orders for a given item. In APS mode, the system performs these steps after the APS Planning activity has been run.

  • If you are using APS, the system checks the setting of the Planned Orders Consolidation parameter (see “Planned Orders Consolidation: Manufactured Items” and “Planned Orders Consolidation: Purchased/Transferred Items” for more information).
    Setting Description
    None (default) The system does not consolidate the planned orders. There will be one planned order for each unsatisfied requirement for the item.
    One Day The system consolidates all planned orders due on the same day into a single planned order. There will be one planned order for each day's requirements for the item.
    Days Supply The system consolidates all planned orders due within the item's Days Supply (see “Items - Days Supply” for more information) number of days into a single planned order. For example, suppose an item with Days Supply = 5 has four planned orders:

    PLN01 due October 10, Qty=500 PLN02 due October 13, Qty=100 PLN03 due October 17, Qty=500 PLN04 due October 22, Qty=50

    The system consolidates PLN01 and PLN02 into one planned order for quantity of 600 due October 10. PLN03 and PLN04 are consolidated into a single planned order for quantity of 550 due October 17. The due date of the earliest requirement is used as the due date of the consolidated planned order.

    Use the Days Supply option with caution. It is designed for use with Purchased/Transferred items. Problems may occur when consolidating the PPLNs (parent planned orders); this situation may cause material not to be ordered on time for a given order

  • The system checks the 30-day Bucket Fence parameter (applies to all items and item types). When this number of calendar days is reached, the system ignores the Planned Orders Consolidation parameter and combines the planned orders into 30-day increments.

EXAMPLE: Suppose the current date is October 10, and the 30-day Bucket Fence is set to 50 days. In addition to earlier planned orders for a given item, there are several planned orders for it that are due much later:

  • PLN10 due December 20, Qty=100
  • PLN11 due December 23, Qty=50
  • PLN12 due January 6, Qty=200
  • PLN13 due January 10, Qty=100
  • PLN14 due January 31, Qty=100

All of these planned orders are due within the same 30-day period. The system combines these orders into a single planned order for 550, due December 20.

The system checks the 90-day Bucket Fence parameter (applies to all items and item types). When this number of days is reached, the system begins grouping all requirements due within the 90-day period into a single planned order. Usually, you will set this parameter to a larger number of days than the 30-day Bucket Fence, to create a logical progression of detail in your planned orders.