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Capacity Levelling using Capacity Scheduling Table in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition

SubhashreeSahoo
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
a month ago
1,068

 

Capacity Levelling using Capacity Scheduling Table 

This blog highlights the Realignment functionality in the app ‘Capacity Scheduling Table’ in S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. This app caters the possibility to schedule orders finitely, thereby helping the planner to level the capacity to have a smooth production schedule avoiding capacity overload. Here we will provide some fundamental clarification on the following topics. 

  1. Usage of Set Strategy 
  2. Possibility of finite planning 
    • Realignment
    • Rescheduling 

Usage of Set Strategy

In capacity scheduling table, Set Strategy is used to pre-set up the strategies that would be used during rescheduling of orders. The set strategy provides the following options:

Figure 1: Set Strategy ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')Figure 1: Set Strategy ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')

Note:

  • The strategy is applicable to Reschedule Action and other planning actions e.g. dispatching. For Realignment, the additional realignment pop-up overwrites the set strategy.
  • The planning mode ‘Bucket’, scheduling control ‘Find Slot’ and direction ‘Backward’ remains as default unless changed. 

Planning Mode:

This is used to show the planning mode in the detail object page of the orders

You can select any one of the following modes:

  • Bucket- Displays capacity duration in buckets (sum of all shifts excluding breaks). You can select day, week or shift as bucket size.

Figure 2: Detail View in Time Bucket( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')Figure 2: Detail View in Time Bucket( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')

 

  • Sequence- represents the daily view of the capacity duration in a time continuous way.

Figure 3: Detail View in Sequence ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')Figure 3: Detail View in Sequence ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')

 

Scheduling Control

The following options help to control the scheduling strategy (finite or infinite) of the order operations :

  • Find Slot (Finite): Schedule an operation in a slot that has sufficient capacity, considering the existing capacity of the work center.
  • Infinite Scheduling: Schedule an operation in a slot without considering the current capacity load.
  • Insert Operation (Finite): you can insert an operation into an existing schedule on a desired date even though there is no available slot on this date, or the slot is too small. If required, the app creates a slot that is large enough to hold this order by shifting the neighboring operation that are in the planning direction onto the work center or resource.
  • Note (for using insert operation)
  • The scheduling direction is considered when you choose this option
  • You cannot insert an operation in the middle of an existing operation.
  • An ongoing operation cannot be modified. 

 

 

Possibility of Finite planning for Capacity Levelling:

Realign Schedules:

This functionality helps primarily to:

  • “Resolve overdue orders” in case production is slower than planned
  • “Pull forward” for orders in case production is faster than planned
  • Resolve capacity overload

Overdue orders: are termed as overdue when the operation end date has passed the current time without the order being dispatched or confirmed. Overdue status doesn't depend on Planning status (dispatched or non-dispatched). The overdue alert state is calculated based on the current date and the scheduling direction you have set in Set Strategy. The overdue alert icon will not be displayed for partially confirmed orders.

Late orders are termed late if the receipt date of the order is greater than its requirement date.

You can identify the overdue and late orders by the alert icons and accordingly prioritize the dispatch of those orders or move your scheduled orders to an earlier time.

Realignment Schedules could be used for smoothing the production schedule for the portfolio of orders using filter on a pacemaker work center by capacity levelling.

 During realignment user can choose either one of the scheduling controls to realign your work center schedules. This control overrides the control of set strategy.

  • Find Slot
  • Insert Operation

After selecting the control, select an offset time period (Future or Past) and enter the number of calendar days the chosen strategy should apply for. To use past you need to set a past scheduling threshold in "My App Settings".

Note

  • You cannot opt for Find Slot if your offset value is in the past.
  • The Realign button applies to your changes and the Save and Realign button saves your settings for the next visit and applies to your changes.
  • Realignment schedule also dispatches the order at the same time.
  • Realign Schedule works only forward regardless of the scheduling direction you have chosen.

 We are using the following apps to provide a pictorial understanding on the topic in relation to the app ‘Capacity Scheduling Table’:

  • Manage Work Center Capacity
  • Capacity Scheduling Board

 The following illustration from app ‘Manage Work Center Capacity’ shows the overload of the work center due to overdue orders before realignment: 

Figure 4: Detail View of Workcenter ( App: ‘Manage Workcenter Capacity’)Figure 4: Detail View of Workcenter ( App: ‘Manage Workcenter Capacity’)

 

Now we perform the following steps in the app ‘Capacity Scheduling Table’ 

  • Filter your orders using the Alert Status and Work Center filter. The Orders table displays all overdue or late orders as per your selection.
  • Select the check boxes against the overdue or late order operations you want to resolve. You can select all orders of a particular time bucket as well. 

Figure 5: List View ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')Figure 5: List View ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')

  • Choose Realign Schedules.
  • Choose any one of the scheduling controls: OPTION 1 - using ‘Find Slot’
  • Choose a time Offset.
  • Enter number of calendar days
  • Choose – Realign and Save 

Figure 6: Realign Pop-up ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')Figure 6: Realign Pop-up ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table') 

  • User can choose any one of the following actions:
    • Realign: To apply your changes to the system, so that the planner can review the planning simulation before saving it.
    • Save and Realign: To save the current settings for your next visit and to apply your changes
    • Cancel: To discard your changes

After saving the realignment the result could be checked in the app ‘Manage Work Center Capacity’. 

Figure 7: Detail View of Workcenter ( App: ‘Manage Workcenter Capacity’)Figure 7: Detail View of Workcenter ( App: ‘Manage Workcenter Capacity’) 

After realignment using finite planning, the load is distributed based on available capacity of the work center without creating any overload, thus levelling the capacity and smoothing the production schedule. The same could be checked in the app ‘Capacity Scheduling Board’ as well where no overlap would be noticed. 

Figure 8: App: ‘Capacity Scheduling Board’Figure 8: App: ‘Capacity Scheduling Board’

 For realignment, we can use OPTION 2 – ‘Insert Operation’ as well. 

Load before realignment (we reverted the scenario) 

Figure 9: Detail View of Workcenter ( App: ‘Manage Workcenter Capacity’)Figure 9: Detail View of Workcenter ( App: ‘Manage Workcenter Capacity’)

 You can follow the steps 1-8 mentioned above,

In step 4 (from the previous steps), choose the other scheduling control.

OPTION 2 - using ‘Insert Operation’ 

Figure 10: List View ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')Figure 10: List View ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')

 

Figure 11: Realign pop-up ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')Figure 11: Realign pop-up ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table') 

It can be noticed that after operation realignment, the load was shifted to a date in the future for the selected order operation.

Figure 12: List View ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')Figure 12: List View ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table') 

The load on 28.08.24 has been decreased and one of the order operations was inserted on 17.09.24 and thus increase of load is visible. 

Figure 13: Detail View of Workcenter ( App: ‘Manage Workcenter Capacity’)Figure 13: Detail View of Workcenter ( App: ‘Manage Workcenter Capacity’)

If you want to smoothen the capacity for the entire time bucket, realignment using find slot could be done. e.g. realignment using find slot from 28.08.24 

Figure 14: Detail View of Workcenter ( App: ‘Manage Workcenter Capacity’)Figure 14: Detail View of Workcenter ( App: ‘Manage Workcenter Capacity’)

Same can be checked in the scheduling board as well. 

Note:

  • When the pacemaker work center is used in multiple operations, the load might not reduce completely because, realignment takes place for the first operation only. That means you might still see overload (decreased) on that work center since the other operations are not realigned.
  • If all operations shown in the work center object page in the app ‘Manage Work Center Capacity’, are the same shown in Capacity Scheduling Table, then overload caused due to overdue order will be resolved by realignment. (Evaluation and realignment for same number of operations for the same pacemaker work center in both apps). 

 

Reschedule

  • Reschedule: Enables the user to change the date and time of the order operation that has been dispatched. You can set the firming status for deallocated planned orders. You can reschedule any order irrespective of its planning status (dispatched or non-dispatched).

Note

If the Scheduling Control is forward, the start date of the order operation can be modified. (In case of scheduling direction “forward”: Specify new start date + time). 

If the Scheduling Control is backward, the end date of the order operation can be modified. (In case of scheduling direction “backward”: Specify new end date + time). 

Figure 15: Detail View of Workcenter ( App: ‘Manage Workcenter Capacity’)Figure 15: Detail View of Workcenter ( App: ‘Manage Workcenter Capacity’)

The color legend could be adapted by providing the threshold in the app settings. 

Figure 16: List View ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')Figure 16: List View ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')

In this case we are using backward rescheduling. 

Figure 17: Reschedule Pop-up ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')Figure 17: Reschedule Pop-up ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')

Figure 5: Reschedule Message ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')Figure 5: Reschedule Message ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table') 

Because of the set strategy the overload was mitigated during the rescheduling of the overload operation.

Figure 18: Set Strategy ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table')Figure 18: Set Strategy ( App: 'Capacity Scheduling Table') 

The rescheduling has scheduled the overloaded operations according to the finite available slots.

Figure 19: Detail View of Workcenter ( App: ‘Manage Workcenter Capacity’)Figure 19: Detail View of Workcenter ( App: ‘Manage Workcenter Capacity’) 

The color legend could be adapted by providing the threshold in the app settings. Here orange color represents the optimum load between 80-100%.

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