Setup

1. Enable MPS in Manufacturing > Config > Settings

2. Configure your Products

   1. A procurement route is necessary, like Buy or Manufacture

   2. If the buy route is set, be sure to set a vendor

3. Add products to MPS with one of the following options

   1. Manually one by one on the MPS interface

   2. Via import of sale.forecast records (item 4 required)

4. (Optional) Some users may find it helpful to add menu items for the following records, as this allows for importing of data.

   1. sale.forecast

   2. product.product (if not using variants)

Moving Parts

Data for the MPS is stored on two models; product.product and sale.forecast. One sale.forecast record corresponds to one column for one product in the MPS UI.

The relevant fields on product.product are:

• MPS Active: Whether or not the product is active in the MPS. (True/False)

• Forecasted Target: Target Forecasted Inventory amount per period

• Minimum to Supply: Default quantity to supply

• Maximum to Supply: Maximum production capacity

The relevant fields on sale.forecast are:

• Date: If the forecast is created in the MPS GUI, this is the first day of the periodic

• Product: product.product

• Product UOM: Unit of measure used. Probably best not to change this.

• Production Location: Warehouse to supply the product to

• Mode: Determines the behavior of the “To Supply” field

• To Supply: Quantity to supply via either MO or PO. This field can be user-input or computed depending on how the Mode field is set.

• Demand Forecast: Direct demand forecast. This is a user input field

• State: Indicates whether or not the cell has been launched.

• Procurement Group:

The following sale.forecast fields are visible on the MPS UI

Time Period: Day, Week, or Month, set using the picker under the filter bar.

Starting inventory: Stock on Hand on 1st day of the selected period (date on corresponding sale.forecast record)

Demand Forecast: User-input value for demand forecast for stock. This is demand in addition to indirect demand.

Indirect Demand: Quantity of a product used in the manufacture of another product on the MPS. This applies to components.

To Receive / To Supply / Produce (aka “To Procure): Computed from the above fields (see below) or set manually.

Forecasted Inventory: Computed from the above fields (see below)

Relevant Calculations

Forecast = Starting Inventory – Direct Demand – Indirect Demand + To Procure

To Procure = Demand Forecast + Indirect Demand – Starting Inventory OR min value OR max value

Note that “To Procure” is constrained within the min/max values set on the product.product. Therefore, the forecast formula above may not always apply.

Working with the MPS

Setting up your Forecast

Enter your demand forecast in the cells of the MPS. The system will use this data and attempt to maintain a Forecasted Inventory for each period that equals the Forecasted Target you set on each product by adjusting the quantity to procure. This is constrained within your Min and Max production values, so the Forecasted Target may not always be met for a given period.

Launching Cells

Launching cells is the term used to describe the process of creating actual purchase and manufacturing orders from the MPS forecast. There are two ways to launch cells from the MPS:

You can launch cells individually (on a product-by-product basis). This will launch the next period to launch.

To launch cells of many products simultaneously, ou can click the button at the top of the page labelled “Launch Green Cells”. This will create purchase/manufacturing orders for all products on the MPS with green cells for all warehouses.

The color of a cell on the MPS interface indicates its launch status:

Grey cells have already been launched. Procurements have been created.

While cells have not yet been launched and are not yet ready.

Green cells are ready to launch.

A cell’s launch-readiness is determined according to the lead time of the product.

Miscellaneous Notes

• Planning uses the first day of the specified period.

• Forecasts are stored on the model sale.forecast. You can have more visibility into what is happening by creating a menu item for this model

• Warning: Forecast Target is set on the product, so you must pick a time bucket size and stick with it

• Warning: Launching green cells launches all cells regardless of filters

• Warning: Once a cell is launched, you can’t launch it again. This is good because production planning and purchasing are often different people and you don’t want to change PO quantities without checking with the purchaser first

• To change launched cells, you must delete the sales forecasts that correspond to those cells and you should delete any procurements created.

• Cells turn grey when launched

• You can launch cells regardless of greenness by clicking the launch line green target button. This launches the next non-grey cell

• Possible BUG: The warehouse field on the sale.forecast may not do anything

Questions

• How does this work with multi-warehouse?

  • Fine, apparently. Use a filter. But beware that you must launch all warehouses at once

• What makes a cell green?

  • Something about lead times

• Does the MPS block you from producing more than your maximum?

  • Seemingly not?