EP1803088A1

EP1803088A1 - Transfer of information associated to requirement orders in production planning

Info

Publication number: EP1803088A1
Application number: EP04787182A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Thomas GROß-BÖLTING; Bernhard Lokowandt; Dirk Meier-Barthold; Klaus Reinelt; Stefan Siebert
Original assignee: SAP SE
Current assignee: SAP SE
Priority date: 2004-09-21
Filing date: 2004-09-21
Publication date: 2007-07-04
Also published as: WO2006032301A1

Abstract

Planning of a multi-stage production of finished products includes planning material flows of input products which go into the production of the finished products. For determining the flows of the input products it is advantageous to transfer information from orders for the finished products to orders for the input products. The transfer of information is done by determining relevant material flows between the finished products and the input products. One example for transferred information is the distinction between a sales order and a forecast order. In typical situations, coverage of sales orders has a higher priority than coverage of forecast orders and such information allows prioritization of orders for the input products.

Description

Description Transfer of information associated to requirement orders in production planning Technical Field

[001] The present invention generally relates to the field of using a computer system for production planning and more particularly to planning a multi-stage production of finished products. Background Art

[002] Production planning is used to plan scenarios within a defined area of a production of one or more finished products. One aspect of production planning is the aspect of production processes which describe how an output product of a production process is produced and what input products are required in the production process. The output product can be the finished product or it can be an intermediate product which is an input product for a further production process. Input products for an intermediate product are also considered as input products for the finished products. Planning of such a multi-stage production of finished products means that the finished products and the input products are objects of the production planning.

[003] Planning multi-stage production scenarios includes a determination of material flows of the finished products and the input products. The determination of the material flows of input product is based on information which is directly associated to the input products. Generally, the information associated to the input products is not sufficient to determine and control the material flows of the input products in an efficient, flexible and reliable way. Disclosure of Invention

[004] The object of the present invention is to provide additional information for input products going into a production of finished products. The additional information is directly associated to the finished products. The information has to be provided in such a way that it can be used for determining and controlling material flows of the input products. This is achieved by acquiring the information from the finished products according to the material flows of products to which the input product contributes. Brief Description of the Drawings

[005] Fig. l is a flow diagram of a method of the invention for a single order.

[006] Fig. 2 is a flow diagram of the method of the invention for a plurality of orders.

[007] Fig. 3 is an example for an order situation prior to executing the method of the invention.

[008] Fig. 4 is an example for an order situation following execution of the method of the invention.

[0091 Pig- 5 describes an order situation with a dynamic pegging linkage between a dependent demand order and a stock order.

[010] Fig. 6 describes the same order situation as in the previous figure but with a fixed pegging linkage between the dependent demand order and the stock order.

[Oil] Fig. 7 illustrates an order situation with different pegging linkages and different categories of independent demand orders.

[012] Fig. 8 illustrates the same order and pegging situation as in the previous figure except for a different pegging linkage connected to a stock order. Mode for the Invention

[013] The following descriptions describe exemplary embodiments of the invention and do not limit the scope of the invention.

[014] In general, planning systems describe a concrete production situation using orders.

Frequently, a definition of an order includes a structure with different order items or order nodes. However, in the following an order definition without a structure is used: an order is defined as a data set specifying at least a product, a quantity, a date, and a category. According to the category orders can be classified into requirement orders which represent a product demand and receipt orders which represent a product availability. There are requirement orders and receipt orders for finished products and input products. In the present context, the most relevant requirement orders are: sales orders and forecast orders for the finished products and dependent demand orders for the input products. The most relevant receipt orders are: production orders for finished products or intermediate products and stock orders for input products.

[015] Planning systems use additional elements to describe the production situation.

There are pegging linkages which connect receipt orders with requirement orders for the same product. Pegging linkages describe the fact that a specific available quantity is used to satisfy a specific demand and in this way they model a material flow of the product. There are process relations which connect receipt orders for an output product of a planned production process to requirement orders for input products of the production process. Process relations are a result of planning a production process which has the objective of providing an available quantity of the output product and which has led to computation of requirement orders for the input products.

[016] The production process can include e.g. an explosion of a bill of material. This calculation determines the input products and the quantities of the input products required for manufacturing the output product. The production process can further include e.g. a calculation of the dates when a required quantity of an input product is due. The results of the two calculations can be used for creating the requirement orders for the input products of the production process.

[017] With pegging linkages and process relations it is possible to establish connections between a requirement order for an input product and one or more requirement orders for the finished product. Such a connection represents a contribution of the input product order to a production which fulfils the demand of the finished product order. It is possible that an input product order cannot be connected to a requirement order for a finished product if for example there is no pegging linkage from connected receipt orders to a requirement order for the finished product.

[018] In the embodiment, the problem which occurs in a multi-stage production is that some information which is known for requirement orders for the finished product is not known for requirement orders for input products. However, there are situations when information to a finished product requirement order is also important for an input product requirement order which is connected to the finished product order.

[0191 An example for such a loss of information is the order category: a finished product order can be e.g. of the category sales order or forecast order and it can be connected to a requirement order for an input product of the category e.g. dependent demand; the re¬ quirement order for the input product can be of a different category than dependent demand but it is usually not of the category sales order or forecast order. Therefore, the information if the order is connected to a sales order or to a forecast order is not directly available. This information can be relevant when the requirement orders for the input product are prioritized in the following way: requirement orders connected to sales orders have a higher priority than the requirement orders connected to forecast orders. The reason for such a prioritization may be that sales orders should be fulfilled in time to serve the customer while forecast orders can be fulfilled at a later time without an adverse effect. As a consequence, the production planning system which pegs receipt orders to requirement orders for the input product may use the prior¬ itization to fulfil the requirement orders connected to a sales order with a higher priority than the requirement orders connected to a forecast order. In this way, the in¬ formation about the category of requirement order for the finished product determines the material flow of the input product and contributes to a faster and more reliable production planning.

[020] The example of the order category can be made more concrete by applying it to an exemplary production of a computer. In this case, the finished product is a computer model which can have different components, i.e. input products, such as a main board, a hard disc drive, and a case. A production process which includes the explosion of the bill of material determines the components and their required number. In the example, the orders representing the demands for the components are of the category dependent demand. The dependent demand orders for a specific hard disc drive do not directly provide any information if they were created in order to comply with a sales order or with a forecast order for the computer model. This information has to be determined using the process relations and the pegging linkages to identify the connected re¬ quirement orders for the computer model and transfer the information to the dependent demand orders for the hard disc drive.

[021] In addition to the order category there are other examples for information to finished product orders like sales order priority, customer for the sales order, and required shelf life for the sales order. More generally, the information can be attributes to sales orders and forecast orders which include combinations of one or more charac¬ teristics. Such different kinds of information can be relevant for prioritizing re¬ quirement orders for input products.

[022] In the figures, graphical representations and symbols are used for describing exemplary production scenarios. Persons of ordinary skill in the art can implement methods of the invention without relying on the representations.

[023] Fig. 1 is a flow diagram which illustrates the steps of a method of the invention.

The method starts with accessing 110 orders, pegging linkages, and process relations. The accessed data are of different types and it can be possible that they are read from one data source or from multiple data sources. Possible data sources are data base tables. In an alternative embodiment the data source is an order LiveCache which is a central order storage system of the Advanced Planner and Optimizer program com¬ mercially available from SAP AG, Walldorf, Germany. The accessed data are used for executing following method steps.

[024] The next step of the method is receiving 120 an identification of a requirement order for an input product. It is the identification of the order for which additional in¬ formation is requested from a connected requirement order for a finished product. After this step follows a set 131 of sequential steps 130, 140, 150, 160.

[025] Identifying 130 one or more connected requirement orders for one or more finished products includes using process relations and pegging linkages to trace receipt orders and requirement orders for products of higher stages. The step is finished if the connected requirement orders for the finished products are identified. The identified re¬ quirement orders can be for different finished products.

[026] The next step is reading 140 the information which is requested for the received order from the identified orders. Selecting 150 one of the identified orders is done according to a prioritization of the read information for the identified orders. The method finishes with transferring 160 the information of the selected requirement order to the received requirement order.

[027] Fig. 2 describes a method which comprises the method step 110 and the steps of set

131 of the previous method. The second step of the method is receiving 121 identi- fications for a plurality of requirement orders for an input product. It is the plurality of orders for which the information is requested from the connected finished product orders.

[028] The steps of 131 are executed for the plurality of orders until the orders are processed. As a last step prioritizing 170 of the orders is done according to the transferred information. This may be performed using a priority list, wherein the list allows deciding which information has higher priority when comparing two sets of in¬ formation.

[029] Fig. 3 displays a production scenario which contains orders, pegging linkages and production relations. The displayed scenario is an example for a scenario prior to executing a method of the invention. There are orders for two products, for the finished product 210 and for the input product 220. In the example, there are three requirement orders 231-233 and two receipt orders 241, 242 for the finished product. For the input product, there are two requirement orders 261, 262.

[030] There are two process relations 251 , 252 which separately connect the two receipt orders 241, 242 for the finished product with the two requirement orders 261, 262 for the input product. The process relations represent results of planned production processes with respect to the output and input products in the figure. Receipt order 241 represents a planned available quantity of 50 finished products. The category is e.g. production order. The production process which is planned to produce the available quantity requires the input of 50 pieces of the product 220. It may also require the input of other input products but they are irrelevant for executing the embodiment of the invention. The demand for the input product 220 is represented by the requirement order 261 which is linked by process relation 251 to the receipt order 241. Frequently, the category of an order which is created by a planned production process is dependent demand.

[0311 There are also two pegging linkages 271 , 272 which connect the receipt order 241 with the requirement orders 231 , 232. They represent a material flow of the finished product wherein the requirement orders demanding the quantities of 20 and 30 pieces are fulfilled with the receipt order quantity of 50 pieces. There is no pegging linkage between order 242 and 233 because it has not yet been calculated for the production scenario. There is also information 281-283 for the finished products orders. The type of information may be the order category or alternatively a further kind of information which is attached to requirement orders for the finished product.

[032] Fig. 4 shows a production scenario following execution of the method of the invention for the scenario of the previous figure (Fig. 3). The embodiment accesses 110 data of the scenario. The order 261 is received 120 and the following step is executed: identifying 130 requirement orders 231, 232 for the finished product is performed by using process relation 251 to trace receipt order 241 and by using pegging linkages 271 and 272 to trace the requirement orders 231 and 232. Ac¬ cordingly, orders 231 and 232 are connected to order 261 and one of the two finished product orders is selected by a prioritization of information associated to orders 231 and 232. According to the prioritization result information of one of the two orders 231 and 232 are transferred to order 261 and the information becomes attached information 290 to the order.

[0331 Persons of ordinary skill in the art understand that applying the method to received order 262 results in not identifying a connected requirement order for the finished product. The reason is that receipt order 242 for the finished product is not connected with a pegging linkage to a requirement order. The treatment of such requirement orders 262 without connections to requirement orders to a finished product depends on a following prioritization procedure for input product orders.

[034] Fig. 5 illustrates a production scenario with orders, pegging linkages, and process relations. Orders 310, 311 are forecast orders and orders 312, 313 are sales orders for a finished product. In the example, the order quantity is 100 pieces per order. The forecast orders are connected with pegging linkages 350 and 351 to a receipt order 320. The pegging linkages are of the fixed pegging linkage type. Pegging linkage 360 is of the dynamical pegging linkage type.

[035] Fixed pegging linkages are consolidated linkages. They arc not changed in a standard calculation when e.g. new orders occur in the production scenario. In the embodiment, fixed pegging linkages are used for identifying connected orders and methods of the invention are used for calculation of only fixed pegging linkages. Dynamical pegging linkages are preliminary linkages which can be changed in a new calculation of the production scenario if the order situation becomes different. In the displayed example, it may be that a new requirement order for the input product is entered and that the pegging linkage 360 disappears because there is a new dynamical pegging linkage to the new order.

[036] The sales orders are connected to a receipt order 321 by fixed pegging linkages 352,

353. The orders for the finished product describe the first stage of the production. The next stage of the production is related to the finished product by process relations 356, 357. They connect the receipt orders for the finished product to requirement orders 330, 331 for an input product. Order 330 is connected to stock order 340 by the dynamical pegging linkage. The stock order represents an available quantity in stock and therefore is a receipt order. The linkage 360 has been calculated because the order 330 has an earlier date than the order 331 and the dynamical pegging calculation fulfills earlier requirements with a higher priority. Dynamical pegging calculations typically try to fulfill earlier requirement orders because both the two orders have a future date but the earlier one has less time left to be fulfilled.

[0371 F'g- 6 displays the results of an embodiment of the invention for the same production situation as the previous figure. The embodiment is used to transfer order category information from the orders 310-313 to the orders 330, 331. The information which is attached to the order 330 is that it is connected to a forecast order and the in¬ formation which is attached to order 331 is that it is connected to a sales order. Typically, sales orders have a higher priority than forecast orders. Accordingly, in a priority list for the transferred information, sales orders have a higher priority position than forecast orders. Due to this fact, the calculation of the production planning system results in creating a fixed pegging linkage 370 between order 340 and order 331.

[038] This result demonstrates that a pegging decision depends on the available in¬ formation: for the dynamical pegging linkage only local order information like the dates of the requirement orders are taken into account; however, for the fixed pegging linkage calculation additional information which are transferred from the connected finished product orders are taken into account. The additional information adds a global aspect to the pegging calculation. The global aspect is that sales orders have a higher priority than forecast orders and with the embodiment the material flows can be controlled in such a way to reflect that aspect.

[039] In Fig. 7 a production scenario is displayed with an additional third stage compared to a previous scenario (Fig. 5). There arc two forecast orders 410, 413 which are connected with fixed pegging linkages 470, 473 to receipt orders 420, 421. There are two sales orders 411, 412 one of which is connected with a dynamical pegging linkage 471 to the order 420 and one of which is connected with fixed pegging linkage 472 to the order 421. Requirement orders 430, 431 are displayed for an input product and they are connected to receipt orders 440, 441 by fixed pegging linkages 474, 475. The receipt orders 440, 441 require an input product and the requirements are represented by orders 450, 451. For the stock order 460 a dynamical pegging calculation has been done and the result is a dynamical pegging linkage 476.

[040] Fig. 8 displays the results of a fixed pegging calculation using the embodiment of the invention. As in a previous production scenario (Fig. 6) the order category in¬ formation is transferred to the relevant orders 450 and 451 and sales orders have a higher priority than forecast orders. Since only fixed pegging linkages are considered as connections the information which is transferred to order 450 is that it is connected to a forecast order. The order 451 is connected to two different orders 412 and 413. In the embodiment the order with the higher priority information is selected according to a priority list which gives sales orders a higher priority than forecast orders. Therefore the sales order 412 is selected and consequently order 451 is connected to the sales order 412. This leads to the result of the fixed pegging linkage 477 between order 451 and order 460 because the sales orders are preferably fulfilled.

Claims

[001] A computer-implemented method (100) of planning production processes for one or more finished products (210), the method comprising: accessing (1 10) requirement orders (231-233) for the finished products (210) which identify demanded quantities for the finished product, requirement orders (261, 262) for input products (220) which identify demanded quantities for the input products which go into a production process for the finished product, receipt orders (241, 242) for the finished products and for the input products identifying an available quantity of the products, pegging linkages (271, 272) between requirement orders and receipt orders for a product, and process relations (251, 252) between receipt orders for an output product of a production process and requirement orders for an input product of the production process, wherein the output product may be a finished product or an intermediate product which is also an input product of a production process; receiving (120) an identification for a particular requirement order (261) for an input product; identifying (130) one or more requirement orders (231, 232) for the finished products which are connected to the received particular requirement order by process relations (251) and pegging linkages (271, 272); reading (140) information (281, 282) associated to the identified requirement orders; selecting (150) one of the identified requirement orders as a result of a prior- itization of the information; and transferring (160) the information associated to the selected requirement order to the received particular requirement order. [002] The method according to claim 1 wherein the method step of selecting (150) one requirement order for a finished product is a result of a prioritization of the in¬ formation according to a priority list. [003] The method according to claim lor claim 2 wherein the method steps from identifying (130) to transferring (160) are executed repeatedly for a received (121) plurality of requirement orders for the input product. [004] The method (101) according to claim 3 wherein the information (290) transferred from the requirement orders for the finished products to the requirement orders for the input product are used to prioritize the plurality of requirement orders for the input product. [005] The method according to claim 4 wherein the method step of prioritizing (170) the information (290) is according to a priority list. [006] The method according to claim 4 or 5 wherein the results of the prioritization

(170) determine the material flow of the input product. [007] A computer program comprising program instructions for causing a computer to perform the methods of any of the claims 1 to 6.

[008] A computer system performing the methods of any of the claims 1 to 6.

[009] A computer readable medium for storing program instructions which cause a computer to perform the methods of any of the claims 1 to 6.