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Dates and Workflow

This page describes how to schedule Production Plans and Purchase Order Plans when you create them from Sales Forecasts.
  1. A Sales Forecast should be for one week or one month (depending on the Period Type you have chosen in the Forecast Settings setting), and should begin on the first day of the week (i.e. Monday) or the month.

  2. When you create a Production Plan from a Sales Forecast (i.e. using the 'Create Production Plan' Maintenance function), its period will be the same as the period of the Sales Forecast. In each row in the Production Plan, the Needed Date will be the first day of the week or month, so that the Items will be in stock ready to sell during the week or month. This means that the Start Date in each row (i.e. the date when production work should start) is likely to be in an earlier week or month. Please refer to the Start Dates in Production Plans page for details about how Start Dates will be calculated.

  3. The 'Create Purchase Order Plan' Maintenance function will create a Purchase Order Plan that includes both the buyable Items in the Sales Forecast and the Items that are required as components in the Production Plan. When you specify a period for this Maintenance function, bear in mind the following:

    • An Item in a Sales Forecast will be included in the Purchase Order Plan if the Start Date of the Sales Forecast is within the period that you specify.

    • An Item required by a Recipe in a Production Plan (i.e. a component) will be included in the Purchase Order Plan if the Start Date in the Production Plan row is within the period that you specify.

    As mentioned in step 2, the Start Date in a Production Plan row is likely to fall in an earlier period than the Production Plan as a whole. You should therefore take this into account when creating Purchase Order Plans.

    For example, if you create a Production Plan for March, the Start Dates in each row (i.e. the dates when you need to start work on the suggested Productions) are likely to be in February (or earlier). You will therefore need to run the 'Create Purchase Order Plan' function for February and possibly earlier months (to ensure the components will be ordered). Items for resale in February's Sales Forecast will also be included in the Purchase Order Plan. When you create a Production Plan for April, you should then create a Purchase Order Plan for March, and so on. This in turn means you should create the Production Plan well in advance, so that there is sufficient time for the ordered components to arrive and for the production work to be carried out.

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The Calculation Formula in the MRP module:

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