Non-Configurable material Block Planning Vs Planning Calendar(Timestream)

[Former Member]

Hi Gurus -

My requirement is certain products can be made only on certain days of the week and certain days of a month. I'm looking at Block Planning and also considering just using a timestream.

For example if we make product A only on a thursday of week 2 for a monthly planning cycle, I can configure a timestream with a monthly interval and make that day available. System will group all the demand for the whole month and create an order on that day. If we make a certain product only on fridays and saturdays of each week, I can again create a timestream with a weekly time interval. The planners an always go and overwrite the working days incase of exceptions. Ofcourse I will be assigning the timestream at the product level and not location level.

My question is, if we can just use the timestream to define which days are allowed for certain material, what is the whole point of using non-configurable block planning? To me at this point the result looks just about the same.

So back to my original question, If I'm not using configurable products, what is the use of block planning?

Appreciate your feedback,

Varun

[Former Member]

hi Varun

what you are mantioning will work for a product being manufactured in specific resource. If the same resource is manufacturing many other products it will not be possible to configure it.

i think block planning for non configurable materials will allow the scenario of multiple products on a single resource

and blocks available for particular products on particular days.

A single resource with multiple products production capability will not be able to restrict the production of a particular product on particular days thruough time stream as it will make it available for other products too and non available to other products in the non working days of the resource.

As i mentioned earlier if ur scenario is of a resource producing only one typoe of product then you need not go for block planning but if it is a multiple product scenario you can go for it.

Just to add if you have a optimizer based scenario then you need not go for block planning in single resource multiple product scenario because you can go for a secondary resource in that case and assign a time stream to it.(secondary resources are not considered in heuristics PPDS )

Regards

Virender

[Former Member]

Hi Virender -

Thanks for the reply. I tested this out. The time stream is assigned to the product master and not the resource or location.

Product A is produced on wednesday of every week , I used a timestream with wednesday as a work day. Product B, used a another timestream with thursday. I ran heuristics and I have all my A orders on wednesday and B orders on thursday. So it's possible to schedule multiple materials on the same resource using time streams. Unless I'm missing something!

The only difference is its a hard constraint in block planning, where as using time streams is a soft constraint. In case of exceptions, you can manually overwrite and create orders on days which are not on timestream but if we have to do the same in block planning, then its a tedious process as we have to liberate the blocks.

Please let me know if I'm on the wrong track though!

Thanks

Varun

[Former Member]

Hi Varun

is this the period profile you are talking about in the demand tab of the product master.

If yes i think as per sap standard it works only in a IPPE environment when we are using RPM to

explode the BOM for dependent components in a PDS.

Kindly confirm if its yes this is something worth looking at

Regards

Virender