Headscratcher problem, unfirm forecast, reserving capacity in production

Kinetic ERP
1

There is a company with big custom jobs they have to plan a year out. They do not know how long each department will take to build the job but… they kinda know which resource groups are going to get slammed. Their customer wants them to reserve some production capacity (infinite) for about two weeks while the customer’s customer approves the timetable. Then the PO gets sent and So entered properly.

  1. Customer asks the company when they have capacity next year.
  2. Company reports August 2027 and ‘reserves’ the capacity
  3. End customer approves timetable and has the customer place the PO
  4. Company makes SO, engineering figures out the method and a make direct job is created firmed and locked at the appropriate time.

What is an easy way to show this in the scheduling engine while waiting for end customer approval to enter the order? Custom solution ideas accepted and encouraged.

2

I’d use a customer-specific Forecast to drive it.

Create a forecast for a planning/placeholder part with a rough routing that only includes the constrained resource groups. MRP will create an unfirm job, which will show in scheduling and consume capacity.

When the real SO lands, it can consume the forecast and you replace it with the engineered job. Clean, standard, no customisation needed.

5 Likes
3

Nice Aaron!