PLANNING IN BUSINESS CENTRAL #1
The planning engine in Business Central can be a very powerful tool but it can easily become overwhelming.
In the first post in this series, I’ll take a look as the recommended setup depending on whether you use locations in your Business Central configuration.
Table of Contents
Inventory Setup
If you are looking to use the planning engine in Business Central, some parameters are really important to consider.
Firstly, I recommend that you disable the possibility to have negative inventory. This can lead to real confusion and is prone to allowing poor practices to develop. You can do this from the Inventory Setup page. If some inventory is negative, you will first need to correct this.
Setup if You Don’t Use Locations
If you have only one operational site, and do not need bins, then you can choose to operate without a location.
If you have no locations, I recommend that you use the following setup:
- Location Mandatory is turned off on the Inventory Setup page
- Components at Location is left blank on the Manufacturing Setup page
With that configuration, when planning, Business Central will use the planning parameters on the item card.
Setup if You Have One Location
If you have one operational site, and you need to use bins to track where your inventory is, you will need to use one location. In that case, I recommend that you also set the location to be mandatory on the Inventory Setup page. This will stop accidentally having stock in a blank location.
Next, ensure that your location is setup as the Components at Location on the Manufacturing Setup page. If you don’t do this Business Central will ignore the majority of the planning parameters when using the planning engine.
With this configuration, when using the planning engine, Business Central will use the planning parameters on the item card.
Setup if You Have Multiple Locations
If you have more than one operational site, then I recommend that you:
- Turn on the Location Mandatory field on the Inventory Posting Setup page
- Use stockkeeping units (SKUs)
Stockkeeping units allow to record location specific parameters for a given item. It is also used in the context of variants, but I will not cover this in this post.
You can create a SKU for an item from the item record directly:
The SKUs created will automatically inherit the parameters indicated on the item record. But they can be modified to be specific for each SKU. This is useful, as different operational site may have different replenishment systems, different storage constraints etc…
If you leave the location filter blank, then a SKU record will be created for each location. If you indicate a location filter, then SKU will only be created for the location(s) indicated.
Once you have created one or more SKU, you can view them by clicking the Stockkeeping Unit Exists link, or by using the navigation button in the ribbon.
When using the planning engine with this configuration, Business Central will use the planning parameters indicated on the SKU record(s).
Other Considerations
Dates have to be maintained throughout the system. The Due Date on assembly orders and production orders, the Planned Shipment Date and the Planned Receipt Date are very important when balancing supply and demand. Poor data will lead to real frustration when using the planning engine.
Planning parameters have to be maintained. Planning parameters will evolve depending on how the item is supplied, changes in market conditions etc… In addition, it’s difficult to get the parameters perfectly right immediately. It takes time, effort and trial and error. When the planning engine gives you odd results, make sure that you tweak the planning parameters to get more accurate plans. If you don’t you will continue getting odd results time after time.
To be considered for planning, an item or a SKU (depending on your setup) must have a re-ordering policy. If it is left blank, the item will not be planned.
Click here if you would like to read more on the Business Central website.
Next: Planning in Business Central #2. Learn about the reordering policies.