Group planning process

• The group planning populates the selected activities in the groups. For example, service activities are grouped into activity sets and groups, project activities are grouped into activity sets and groups, based on the planning attributes. Activity sets are part of a group.
• Activity groups are planned in parallel with time and activity sets. And the activities within a group are sequentially planned in time. Group sequences with Group Method set to Parallel are used to generate groups. Group sequences with Group Method set to Sequential are used to generate activity sets within a group.

LN sorts the activities in groups and activity sets. By default, sorting is based on the latest finish time. Each activity set contains one order with the earliest of the latest finish time, that is also the earliest time the activity set can start and be used for sorting.

LN plans the sorted activities, taking the time windows into account. Planning is based on the Plan Forward parameter in the Generate Plan (tsspc3200m000) session.

LN allows you to modify the plan at two levels:

• At group level: Moves activity sets from one group to another
• Within a group:
  • Modifies the sequence of the activity sets
  • Reschedules from specific activity set from user determined start/end time
  • Splits the activity sets
  • Adds (rush) orders to the activity set
  • Modifies the sequence of the orders in a group

For example, for a day, when the work load within a group is satisfactory, the user can merge all activity sets in a group, resulting in a single group-activity set combination that contains many service orders. These service orders can be sequenced again before the plan is frozen.

You can use the Group Planning Planboard (tsspc3260m000) (Gantt chart) session to view and modify the planning data such as planned start and finish time. You can also use the sessions for the respective activities to modify the planning data. For example, to modify the planning data for work order activities, you can use the Group for Work Orders (tsspc3600m100) session.

You can assign engineers to the activity:

• Manually
• Automatically

You can define up to 20 skills for an activity. The activity skills you define must match with the skills of the employee, assigned for the activity between the planned start and finish time of the activity.

Using the Group planning module, you can create a group of activities to be executed, that can be assigned to an employee/resource.

LN allows you to assign the resources at these levels:

• At group level ( based on characteristic): Groups are created for activities with similar characteristics or attributes. For Example, all the cleaners, dishwashers, and maintenance men are classified in 3 groups. Cleaners: Marc, John and, Hank; Dishwashers: Peter, Dave; Maintenance Men: Marco. LN assigns the resource if the characteristics of the group and the employee are similar. If multiple resources are similar, LN displays the list of employees and the planner can manually select one of the engineers. If a single resource is similar, LN assigns the resource. Alternately, resources can be assigned based on the priority rule. For more information, refer to Priority Rule.
• At activity set level. The resource of the group level is the assigned resource. Individual activity sets cannot be assigned to employees. When an activity set is assigned to another employee, the activity set can be moved to another group that is assigned to another resource. The assignment can also be modified on the service order.

Note LN allows you to generate a default assignment. You can assign an engineer to a service order activity directly, based on the service type. However, the assignment generated by group planning is considered before the default assignment.

LN calculates the new start and finish times. When the new planned start and finish times are known, including travel durations, the slack or shortage of time can be displayed to the user (planner) for every group assigned to a resource.

The group planning activity data is copied to the corresponding service order activities, work order activities, and planned activities.. For service orders, the updated travel date/time fields are also copied. Use the Release Plan (tsspc3240m000) session to release the group plan.