Creating and Releasing a Planning Scenario

Use

You use the planning scenario to define the settings for long-term planning. The planning scenario controls how long-term planning is to be carried out.

To compare different versions of planned independent requirements or plants, you can create various planning scenarios and then compare the planning results of these scenarios.

Prerequisites

You must create one or several planned independent requirements versions.

Features

The following settings are possible in the planning scenario

You allocate the planned independent requirements versions for which long-term planning is to be carried out. Here, you can use already existing operative versions or you can allocate versions that have been created specially for long-term planning.

You assign the plants in which long-term planning is to be carried out.
You define the planning period. All planned independent requirements in this period are planned. If you do not enter any period, the system automatically starts planning from the current date and continues to the date of the last planned independent requirement.

When evaluating the planning result, you should also take the period before the planning period into account as dependent requirements may lie before the start date of the planning period as a result of the safety time.

You define the initial stock level (that is, plant stock at time of planning) to be used in the long-term planning calculations. The following options are available:

No initial stock: In this case, the system records a plant stock level of zero for planning.

Safety stock as initial stock: In this case, the safety stock entered in the material master record is used as the initial stock.
Plant stock at the time of planning: The system calculates the current plant stock at the time of planning for each material and uses this as the initial stock.
Average plant stock: The system calculates the average stock using data from stock Controlling when you start the report Calculating the Average Plant Stock.

You define whether the system is also to create dependent requirements for materials that are planned using consumption-based planning, for bulk materials or for materials planned using KANBAN.

You define whether sales orders are to be taken into account in long-term planning. That is, whether or not they are to be copied from operative planning. However, sales orders cannot be changed in long-term planning. In addition to the sales order, quotation requests, quotations, SD scheduling agreements, SD scheduling agreements from external service agents, contacts and deliveries are also taken into account.

You can define whether or not you also want to use a planning time fence in long-term planning. This means that the planning time fence from MRP is valid for materials for which the planning time fence is relevant.

You define whether or not you want to work with direct production. This means the system creates an order network in the planning run for materials which are flagged for direct production. Here, you can only change the header order of the order network and the lower level planned orders are displayed only. In the simulative planning run, the system creates separate planning segments entitled Direct production for components planned with direct production - just as in the operative planning run.

You define whether make-to-order planning or individual project planning is to be carried out.
You define whether long-term planning is to be carried out as gross requirements planning. See also: Gross Requirements Planning in Long-term Planning.

You define whether the receipts from operative planning are to be taken into account in long-term planning.

Whether fixed receipts (production orders, purchase orders, shipping notifications, scheduling agreement schedule lines, shipping notifications for schedule lines, manually created reservations, stock transfer orders, stock transfer reservations, delivery schedules for stock transport orders and stock transport reservations, QM inspection lots) are to be taken into account in long-term planning.If yes, fixed receipts that were already planned in the short-term period, for example, are included in the net requirements calculation. However, they cannot be changed.
Whether fixed purchase requisitions are included in long-term planning. If yes, fixed purchase requisitions already planned in the short-term period, for example, are included in the net requirements calculation. However, they cannot be changed.
Whether firm planned orders are included in long-term planning. Firm planned orders can be changed and are included in the net requirements calculation.

By entering a BOM selection ID, you can determine that the BOMs you maintained specially for long-term planning are to be used in long-term planning and not the BOMs from operative planning. See also: Carrying Out Long-term Planning with an Independent LTP BOM.
You can define the available capacity version to be used in long-term planning. By using the capacity version you can maintain several available capacities for a capacity source in the work center.

Settings in the initial screen of the planning scenario

When creating a scenario, you can define specific default settings for the planning scenario in the initial screen. You can then also change these settings in the planning scenario as necessary.
The following options are available:

Standard settings for long-term planning

The most useful control parameters for the execution of long-term planning are already selected in the planning scenario if you selected the Long-term planning field in the initial screen.

Standard settings for gross requirements long-term planning

The most useful control parameters for the execution of long-term planning as a gross requirements planning run are already selected in the planning scenario if you selected the Long-term planning field in the initial screen.

Standard settings for the short-term simulation

The control parameters required for the short-term simulation are already selected in the planning scenario if you selected the Short-term simulation field in the initial screen.

Copying parameters from already existing scenarios

If you want to copy the parameters from an already existing scenario, select the field entitled, Copy parameters from scenario and enter the number of the planning scenario you want to use as a reference.

Releasing a planning scenario

You first have to release a planning scenario before you can plan it in the long-term planning run. When you release the planning scenario, the system creates planning file entries for all materials in all the plants allocated to the planning scenario. There is a separate planning file entry for this purpose. This guarantees that your operative planning is kept completely separate from your simulative planning. This long-term planning file contains all the materials that are also contained in the operative planning file. After the release, every change relevant to MRP triggers an entry in the planning file as in operative planning.

When releasing the planning scenario, you can choose whether you want the system to create the planning file entries either online or in the background.

Activating a planned independent requirements version

Once you have evaluated and adjusted the simulative planning result, you can activate a planned independent requirements version in the planning scenario and, if necessary, you can give it a new version number. As the validity period of the new version, the system either enters the period recorded when maintaining the simulative planned independent requirements version, or, if no period has been maintained here, the system records the planning period of the planning scenario. Once you have activat ed the planned independent requirements version, it is valid for operative planning.

Logistic Controlling Data

No entries can be made in the fields in the section of the screen entitled Logistics Controlling. These fields are for display purposes only if you have already transferred data to the Purchasing Info System or to Inventory Controlling. Here, the following is displayed:

The version with which the data of the long-term planning is saved in the Purchasing Information System is recorded in the Version Purchasing Info System field.
The version with which the data of long-term planning is saved in Inventory Controlling is displayed in the Version, Inventory Controlling field.
The date of the last data transfer to the Purchasing Info System is saved in the Last transfer to PURCHIS field.
The date of the last data transfer to Inventory Controlling is saved in the Last transfer to Inventory Controlling field.