How the production planner works

What the planner does when demand changes, and how to work with it.

The planner is the engine behind GraphaERP. It owns reservations, planner work orders and their allocations, and it reruns whenever something that affects the plan changes: an order is confirmed or edited, a product or BOM changes, stock moves, or work completes. It also runs once a day.

One planning pass

1. Reserve. Confirmed customer demand is served first, in order-date order. Available stock of the finished item is reserved for each order line.
2. Plan work orders. Whatever stock can't cover becomes a work order. Stocked sub-assemblies are used before their BOMs are exploded.
3. Explode. Each work order's components are reserved; missing sub-assemblies get their own dependency work orders.
4. Batch. Work orders are ready when their materials are covered and waiting when they are not. Compatible demand is combined into existing work orders instead of creating duplicates.
5. Flag shortages. Parts that are still short appear as parts to buy in the Purchasing Hub.

Who a work order is for

Every work order records who its output is for — a sales order line, a parent work order or stock. One work order can serve several of them. When work completes, units go to whoever they were allocated to.

Make to stock

Assemblies with Autorun on are kept at their min stock (at least 5, or two weeks of demand). See Products and BOMs.

Manual work orders

Planner work orders are resized as demand changes. If you need a fixed quantity, create a work order yourself in Production Control; manual work orders keep the quantity you entered.

Plan a build

From a product, Plan a build shows what a quantity would need: parts to purchase and draft purchase orders grouped by supplier.