Production and Demand Planning

Production and demand plans support organisations that need to balance demand with production.

A production and demand plan can be used to compare contractual requirements at a despatch level to product-based production figures. Expected production and price data can be entered, so that future planned production figures can be compared to projected demands. Shortfalls in supply are highlighted through the plan to flag necessary adjustments.

Plans are product-centric; therefore, a plan can only be run from a point in the supply chain after which there will be no product transformation (for example, after a wash plant or crusher in a coal scenario).

Within the plan, locations in the supply chain must be connected by process flows. Transport routes are modelled with a combination of process flows (typically a loading and an unloading process flow).

If the production and demand plan includes products that are handled in discrete units, movement flows and packing process flows can be used wherever bulk process flows are indicated in the user interface and documentation. All discrete unit quantities are converted to metric tonnes for display in the production and demand plan.

A comparison of planned versus actual production by location or process flow is also possible. This makes it easy to compare actual and planned production figures at a specific point of the supply chain.

Planning Server Settings

Planning server settings (see Specify Planning Server Settings) can be configured to:

  • Schedule roll-up times of planned versus actual figures
  • Reduce the demand on the server
  • Add security by ensuring that the SQL statements that may be run on the database are read-only

Plan Configuration

A production and demand plan must belong to a plan category or sub-category. Multiple plan categories and plans may be developed as required.

Configuring a production and demand plan involves:

  • Setting up a plan category
  • Creating the production and demand plan
  • Specifying plan stockpiles, process flows, locations and products
  • Configuring delay periods, destination process flows and brand transformation
  • Configuring calendar properties
  • Configuring the worksheet view

A plan can also be branched to create other plans.

The format for dates and times is as specified for the short date and time format on the Options screen.

Plan Worksheet

The Worksheet tab is the main view of the production and demand plan.

Columns

The first column on the worksheet is the Date, which is one of the following dates:

  • Date of the planning period.
  • Date of the planned demand—Editable. If changed, the date of the planned demand on the Planned Demand tab is updated.
  • Date of the despatch order (DO)—Only editable if Lock Date Field For Actual Despatch Orders is unchecked on the Configuration tab.

For a DO date:

  • If the worksheet is set to Include Actuals, the date is:
    • The bill of lading date if the DO has been loaded and a bill of lading date has been specified.
    • The planned despatch date of the DO if no bill of lading date has been specified.
    • A date from the logistics process if Use Bill Of Lading Date As Fulfilment Date is unchecked on the Configuration tab.
  • If the worksheet is set to Display Planned Only, the date is the planned despatch date of the DO.

Note: If the date of a DO is changed in a plan, the date only affects the plan. The DO planned despatch date or bill of lading date is not updated on the actual DO.

The following columns can be configured to be displayed or hidden on the worksheet. Most columns are read-only.

  • Organisation
  • Contract
  • Quota
  • Pricing Status—Contract status.
  • Demand Status—Editable. Select from the statuses defined in the Planned Despatch Order status definition. See Status Definitions.
  • Despatch
  • Despatch Order
  • Notes—Editable. The maximum length is 255 characters.
  • Comments—Comments about the planning period, planned demand, or despatch order. Editable for rows applicable to a date that is equal to or later than the current date. The maximum length is 255 characters.
  • Delivery Entity—Bulk vessel associated with shipments.
  • Despatch ETA—Estimated time of arrival at the first route point of the despatch associated with the despatch order (DO).
  • Date Start—Laycan start date.
  • Date End—Laycan end date.
  • Quota Start Date
  • Quota End Date
  • Fulfillment Location—Editable. Select from the stock locations with Is Fulfillment checked on the Configuration tab. Preselected if one of the fulfilment locations matches the loading location or unloading location of the DO.
  • Contracted Product
  • Required Quantity—Contractual required quantity of the DO. Editable if all the following conditions apply.
    • Allow Updates To Despatch Order Required Quantities is checked on the Configuration tab.
    • The DO's weight value source (as displayed on the DO snapshot) is Required Quantity.
  • Contracted Demand—Either the:
    • Required quantity associated with the planned DO, in the unit of measure specified in the plan configuration.
    • Final quantity of the DO in the unit of measure specified in the plan configuration if all the following conditions apply.
      • The DO has been fulfilled.
      • The worksheet is set to Include Actuals.
      • Use Required Quantity As Contracted Demand is unchecked on the Configuration tab.
  • Preferred Blend Specs—Drop-down table with the specifications of the product associated with the planned DO. The specification values are calculated for the planned date.
  • Preferred Blends—A column displays for each blend in the plan. If quotas are used, a preferred blend in a DO associated with the quota takes precedence over the preferred blend specified in the quota.
  • Preferred Blends Total Quantity

To the right of these columns there is a summary column for each Fulfilment location. The summary displays the stock quantity for the product or brand at that fulfilment location. This summary can be expanded to display the stock quantities moving across each configured process flow and located at each configured location.

The final column is the Total Stock.

Rows

The worksheet displays one row per planning period and one row for each planned demand or DO that meets the criteria of the plan.

The row for the current planning period is highlighted in blue, and weekends are highlighted in orange.

If the planning period is a month or less than a month, the worksheet displays the following additional rows for each month:

  • Total—Displays monthly totals for the Contracted Demand and process flow columns.
  • Net Change—Displays the difference between the start and end of the month for each product and stock location column (the columns that otherwise display running totals).

Planned demands can be used for demands for which a DO does not yet exist. See View or Enter Planned Demands.

DOs are only eligible for inclusion in the plan worksheet if the loading location or unloading location of the DO matches one of the 'stock' locations of the plan. For DOs that have been associated with a despatch, this generally means the (un)loading locations in the despatch route. However, for despatch orders with Assume Generic (Un)Loading Location checked, despatch route locations are ignored; and the Planned (Un)Loading Location and (Un)Loading Location Override are used for filtering despatch orders. The same logic applies for the Planned Customer Delivery tab.

The general settings of the plan can also limit DO inclusion. See Configure General Settings for a Production and Demand Plan.