All plans set expectations about how resources are used and provide reality checks to determine if plans can be implemented. Planning is done by different people at many levels throughout a corporation and QAD Enterprise Applications provides an integrated toolset that is useful at most of these levels.

Strategic plans set guidelines for production and sales. Because they are done for the longest term, they are the least integrated and least precise of the planning levels. Chief Executive Officers and Chief Financial Officers look beyond the immediate year’s demands to set expectations for growth. Strategic plans set out the overall mission, goals, and initiatives for an organization, largely in terms of gross sales or overall income.

The following planning levels are supported by QAD Enterprise Applications.

Production planning is done in the Product Line Planning module of QAD Enterprise Applications. The check against resources is done in the Resource Planning module.

This tool enables you to:

The production plan sets expectations for a:

Sales forecasts, production forecasts, and income expectations are produced by different people. Various sets of expectations must be balanced to determine the plan’s feasibility.

Production plans:

Product line plans are broken up into end items, planned in the master schedule, and exploded to component plans by MRP.

End-item planning is done in the Forecast/Master Plan module of QAD Enterprise Applications. This tool enables you to set production levels in response to actual and forecast demand over a period roughly equivalent to the cumulative lead time.

The cumulative lead time is the longest length of time it takes to produce and ship an item, assuming that nothing is in stock or production.

At this stage, you can develop a rough-cut capacity plan to determine if critical resources will be available. For example, if you want to make 50 items next week but your fabricator only makes 25 in a week, you cannot meet the plan.

The end-item plan sets the number of priority items (end items, level 1 items, service parts, and so forth) that are going to be produced and sets the schedule to produce them.

End-item plans are usually done by master schedulers who:

Master schedulers modify factory plans to accommodate current situations. The horizon tends to be at least as long as the cumulative lead time.

Component planning is done in the Material Requirements Plan (MRP) module and the plans are checked against capacity in the Capacity Requirements Plan module of QAD Enterprise Applications.

This tool enables you to schedule and issue orders for the items and work that will be needed to support the master schedule. You can use Capacity Requirements Planning (CRP) to determine at a fairly precise level how this plan will load the resources you have at your site.

Component planning enables you to determine which work centers and components will be used to meet the plan. The check is to determine whether the work centers have capacity to meet the schedule.

Items that are not master scheduled will be planned using MRP with the master schedule as input. MRP uses this demand to schedule orders for components.

Planners and shop floor personnel use MRP results to determine manufacturing schedules that have the same time horizon as master schedules.

In companies that use Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), operations planning is the key link between long-term business planning and medium- to short-term planning and execution activities.

ERP calculates target inventory levels that support company objectives for:

ERP also calculates corresponding production demands. These demands eventually pass into:

Planning and execution generally move down and to the right through the matrix shown above.

Product line plans generally cover 1 to 3 years, usually shown by months and quarters. They are composed of aggregate forecasts that are converted into end-item forecasts. These detailed forecasts provide input that the master scheduler uses to create a statement of production.

The purpose of a product line plan is to:

Product line plans are broken into:

Forecasting and sales orders introduce independent demand into QAD Enterprise Applications.

Independent demand is demand for an item that is unrelated to demand for other items. These demands serve as the primary reason for establishing the master schedule in QAD Enterprise Applications.

Developed by site and item, a master schedule is the key plan that provides primary input to MRP. A master schedule is a statement of production determining:

Master scheduling can be done to:

Using master scheduling and MRP is an effective method to:

A master scheduler must have:

A master scheduler must know how to prepare data quickly and verify its accuracy in order to deal effectively with:

The master scheduler is responsible for providing:

MRP is a time-phased priority planning system that calculates material requirements using:

Supply is scheduled and rescheduled to:

DRP is the extension of distribution requirements, inclusive planning of key resources contained in a distribution system, such as warehouse space, workforce, money, trucks, and freight cars.