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Does anyone actually use Capable To Promise as a part of their daily order entry process?
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Do the results make sense?
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I feel like the results of CTP are only 75% correct.
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4 keys to Capable To Promise are:
a) Accurate methods of manufacture (MoMs)
b) Accurate resource groups and resources
c) Using finite scheduling (not infinite)
d) All entries in Epicor reflect what you are actually doing, when you do it.
If any of these are off, that is where I’d start investigating.
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Great points Jeff.
Do you actually use Capable to Promise.
I understand that everything needs to be perfect for Epicor to have a chance at making sense.
Crap in crap out. I get it.
I’m not talking about CTP not matching reality. I’m talking about CTP not matching Time Phase.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by not matching time phase? We have explored using it quite a bit, but can’t due to some internal workflow issues. Right now our MTO parts are engineered after orders are released. However anytime we tested through scenarios to see if it would work for us it always made sense what it was suggesting.
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Here is an example.
Let’s run CTP.
It says the customer can’t have them until 01/16/23.
Let’s look at Time Phase.
We only have one on hand, and there is a past due job that wants two of them.
We are due to get more on 05/19/22 and this Sales Order should be the first in line, right?
And then we get more on 11/11/22.
So why is it telling Sales that customers will have to wait until next January?
Best I can tell you are adding new demand to something that never makes it above board. All your current demand drives supply negative for the rest of this year. Until 5/19 you can’t even process the 5/6 and 5/18 requirements. Even if those two order lines got pushed out to January next year you are still short supply one unit on 5/19 when your 8 come in. On 11/11 you would break even but still be short 2 for the new demand you are trying to move with CTP
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Yes. We are hosed on this part. This sales order should get second dibs on the 05/19 PO.
Is it just scrolling down Time Phase and looking for the first time we go positive.
Looks like I forgot to highlight the PO on 06/15. We go positive there.
Here’s another example.
This one is a Sales Kit and it says we have to wait until 06/02.
This sales kit is made up of these two parts.
According to Time Phase we have plenty of both of these parts to ship this sales kit on 05/13.
I would say that MOST of the time, the results make sense, or are close enough that I wouldn’t challenge it. But any “chink in the armor” makes the Sales team throw their hands in the air and say “BROKEN”. So then they don’t use it at all, and dump Sales Orders at impossible dates. Then Shipping and Mfg get all in a tizzy and have to deal with late orders and jobs. And Shipping and Mfg have to go back to Sales and ask them to move the orders out. Round and Round. And then people get tired and apathetic. Blah.
You’re preaching to the choir Christopher, nothing like a chink in the armor to make it all go down in flames. However, these “errors” are usually just misunderstandings. I bet this can be explained, but the explanation might not be what you want to hear. Something like, “this can be explained because the tables that the CTP uses to make the calculation were not updated properly, etc.”
My question is, what tables is CTP using to make the calculation? Obviously it can’t be using partdtl (timephase) because like you said it wouldn’t have suggested 06/02.
Is there some type of safety stock or allocation or somethign that is hung up?
CTP seems to have an additional level of calculation as well. Supplier Due Date Horizion is one field I’ve verified does not impact MRP so assuming its for CTP (95% confident on this)
The highlighted line in CTP is order line 10 but the lines in your time phases are line 29 and 30. I’m not familiar with kits is that normal?
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What gets me matt is that there are no receipts scheduled or po suggestions or anything like that so is it supplier/lead time related?
Another potential is planning time fence.
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So what we have so far (variables that impact CTP):
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Supplier Due Date Horizon
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Sales Kit Functionality - does CTP handle these differently?
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planning time fence
The weird part Joshua is that there are no jobs or POs, no supply records, that are in play here (as seen in timephase).
It’s straight on hand starting balance and then demand records.
Scratch that, I missed the first screenshot of the kit part time phase…
The Kit bill screen shot is grabbed from the Method Tracker, not the order lines.
Yes, the kit children are usually the successive lines on the sales order.
The best explanation I was ever given on how CTP works is that it basically runs MRP & Scheduling on the Order Line Parts… Rough Cut Scheduling I think, so it should take into account everything that MRP would. This means that there needs to be room in the schedule as well.
Scroll to the right in your CTP results and take note of the Job column, this will specify where it determined to supply from, if it’s a CTP Job can actually right click on the CTP job and look at it in Job Tracker/Job Schedule and see what it’s doing.
That I know of the Production Buffers, Queue\Move and Receive Times are still in play.
For instance if you have a Receive Time of 2 on the Plant or Part Class that is included in the CTP calc.
The Planning Time Fence on both parts is set to zero.
Where can I find the Supplier Due Date Horizon. I’m betting we don’t use it.
So there is a Safety of 300 on the ZMAT part, but the Sales Order in question doesn’t take it below the Safety. And does CTP try to keep us above the Safety ? I guess I could see that, but that seems out of character for Epicor. Epicor seems to be very “demand driven” vs “supply driven”.
