Production plan

The customer's production planning ran in Excel, linked to the ERP over ODBC. This app replaces that: planning moved into Business Central, and the planner's administrative time dropped substantially.

Platform

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Type

Extension (AL)

Area

Production planning, capacity planning

Replaces

Excel + ODBC based planning

With a production plan kept in Excel, something can always end up in the wrong place, a formula can break, or the ODBC link simply does not get refreshed. And the mistake does not surface where it was made — it surfaces in production.

The app puts planning where the data is created. It pulls the sales orders for the given period into the plan through a standard dialog, then builds the planning master data once the parameters are set. That is what calculates the values planning needs: sales prices for the planned, completed and remaining quantities, total operation time, standard costs, margin, the raw material cost of the product, the state of the special material flag, and the planned time requirement per work centre group type.

The work centre group type is set on the work centre group card through a page extension, and the app aggregates on that basis. Custom jobs — from the Sample request app — can be fitted into the plan together with their capacity and material requirements.

• Pulling in sales orders

  The sales orders for the given period enter the plan through a standard dialog.

• Planning master data

  Once the parameters are set, the app calculates the values planning needs: prices, operation time, costs, margin and the time requirement per work centre group type.

• Material availability

  Checking the material requirements of the plan — previously one of the most time-consuming manual steps.

• Headcount planning per work centre group

  The headcount the plan requires, broken down by work centre group.

• Work centre group load and product list

  The list of products to be manufactured per work centre group, broken down by week.

• Plan status report

  A compact report on the current state of the plan and the headcount needs per work centre group.

• Scheduling custom jobs

  Sample production can be fitted into the plan with its capacity and material requirements, and is included in the headcount calculation.

• Context-dependent filtering

  Filtering follows the record the pointer is on.

AL Dynamics 365 BC Extension Page extension Capacity planning

• Sample request Custom jobs reach the plan from here