Transportation and Production Calendars in SAP IBP
Increased Flexibility with Planning Calendars in SAP IBP
Having an accurate planning calendar is crucial for firms to ensure on-time delivery of goods, and gives them the ability to meet required service levels. Due to the nature of modern supply chains, it has become increasingly difficult for global firms to stay up to date with local impediments. Within IBP, transportation and production calendars have become an easy and effective way to adjust supply plans as problems arise. Whether it is scheduled holidays or unforeseen circumstances, it is important for your supply chain to maintain a reliable schedule.
Transportation and Production Calendars Effect on Supply Chains
Within SAP IBP, easily editable calendars add a layer of flexibility to a firm’s transportation and production efforts. Manufacturing and shipping schedules are often interrupted by non-working days that extend their duration. To fix this, the IBP transportation or production calendar will automatically bring forward the transport departure or production start date. This ensures that the correct quantity of goods is manufactured and delivered on time.
If selected, the late delivery feature helps the optimizer or the finite heuristic to force a late delivery, depending on the business situation. Planners may use this capability to avoid non-delivery or demand shortfall.
Ultimately, planning calendars enact changes to plans by pausing capacity consumption on non-working days and redistributing the demand either before or after the period in question.
Custom Calendars at Each Production Location or Transportation Lane
Global or regional planners can adjust plans at a granular level. Whether it is a specific resource or an entire plant that needs to be addressed, changes can be made proactively to avoid missed deliveries and low production rates.
For example- let's say a firm needs to shut down a production resource at their plant for unscheduled maintenance. Once the production calendar is updated within the Web UI and a planner reruns the optimizer, the plan will move the demand from the non-working days to working days before or after the maintenance is completed.
Once a planner has configured the appropriate master data attributes, calendars are simply editable within the Web IU under the Planning Calendars tile. This easy but, extremely powerful capability allows firms to stay on top of their supply chain and deliver the best possible service to their customers.
