Order Minimum

This field applies to MRP.

Enter the minimum amount of this item to produce. When the system creates a planned order for this item, it is for a quantity no less than the amount in this field. The system uses the Order Minimum in conjunction with the Order Multiple value. If the demand quantity is less than the order minimum, the system creates the planned order for the order minimum value. If the order minimum value is less than the demand quantity, the system adds order multiples to the order minimum value until the planned order quantity is greater than or equal to the demand quantity.

Note: Other demands can use any leftover quantities created by Order Minimum/Order Multiple calculations.

To ensure efficiency when defining Order Minimum for an item, consider the Plan Granularity setting. You should set Order Minimum according to this consideration: (Order Minimum) * (smallest run duration) > Plan Granularity.

Plan Granularity defines the smallest "bucket" of time that can be reserved in the plan. For example, suppose an item's Order Minimum is 10, the smallest run duration on any operation for this item is 1 minute, and the Plan Granularity is 15 minutes. Each "lot" of 10 pieces will consume 15 minutes of planned resource time at this operation (instead of 10 minutes).