Common Questions about Requirements Planning

The Daily Detail RP Report is not designed to be a report that will work in all circumstances; however some users will find it preferable to the Standard RP Report. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. The Daily Detail report does not "mix" forecasted data with actual data in the same manner that the Standard RP report does, although the report can contain both. Regardless of how the time fences are defined the report will always show production and work orders, purchases, and requisitions. By leaving the time fence days blank or entering a large number such as 999, the report will only show sales orders as opposed to sales forecasts and component demand driven from production or work orders as opposed to demand driven from the master schedule. (Leaving the time fence days blank is actually like setting them to an infinite number)

If the time fence days are set to zero and zero, one would see forecasted sales and component demand driven from the master schedule. If the time fence days are set to, for instance 30, all sales and component data less than 30 days from today will be actual sales orders and production or work order demand. Transactions dated 30 days or more from today will show forecasted sales orders and component demand based on the master schedule. This is different than the Standard RP Report because if the time fence was set to 30 days and you were running it on a day by day basis, it would make a comparison and show the larger of the two numbers (actual sales vs. sales forecasts and master schedule component demand vs. production and work orders component demand) for activity 30 days out. The reason for the change is that the Standard RP Report logic works well when looking at information in terms of weeks or months but not days.

One generally wouldn't run a Standard RP Report on a daily basis and if one did so, it could be a bit fickle, showing large shortages one day and excesses the next. Note: If a Master Schedule has been set up, the Master Schedule Report should be used as opposed to the Daily Detail Report when it comes to finished goods or assemblies as the Daily Detail Report does not include master scheduled assemblies, only their components.

The Daily Detail report does not use the Safety Stock in the same fashion that the Standard RP Report does. The Standard RP Report is a tool that can actually calculate what is needed and when. To do this, Safety Stock must be considered. The Daily Detail report is just presenting information to the user, thus the user should consider that they may or may not want to apply safety stock to the numbers they are viewing.

Many times the Period Definitions are defined multiple times. There might be a WEEKLY1, WEEKLY2, etc., etc. One reason might be to be able to print the Standard RP Report for different time frames. Sometimes the time frames in the PD are not all the same, starting with shorter time frames building toward longer time frames as time moves out. Another situation that comes up from time to time is that the PD for the Master Schedule Report is different than one might use on the Standard RP Report.

When the system creates required orders for a given product, it will first attempt to utilize the manufacturing module. In other words, if we have a shortage of 20 assembly X's in a particular period, the system will generate a manufacturing production order, rather than a Bill of Material/Kitting work order.

Components for both work orders (BM) and production orders (MB) appear on the various RP reports. The end result theoretically will be a generated requisitions using the combination of both sources.

Only quantities for items with legitimate manufacturing bills of material will appear on the report, even though the system allows the user to create a master schedule for items which don't have bills of material in the MB module.