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If you have ever tried to quickly
identify your critical planning issues by flipping through a thousand page BPCS™
MRP/MPS report, you'll love this Unbeaten Path enhancement. Our PaperSaver report
provides users with true exception reporting for the BPCS master production scheduling and
material requirements planning systems. |
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It focuses attention on the issues
that really do need prompt management attention. Unbeaten Path's design gives the user
flexibility to establish decision rules to select a subset of the normal BPCS MRP/MPS
messages for printing. BPCS MRP/MPS messages which do not meet the decision rule
tolerances are not printed. |
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Users can specify a "Buffer
Days" (BfrD) tolerance for each of the five different types of BPCS MRP/MPS message.
Each BfrD tolerance is measured in full days. Here are some practical examples of how the
enhancement works.
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A BfrD tolerance of 4 days is established by the user for expedite messages. If
BPCS identifies a situation which would ordinarily generate a
"expedite-by-four-days" message, this message is dropped by the PaperSaver
before printing.
A BfrD tolerance of 3 days is established for firm-up messages. Let's say that
the planning horizon date is through October 10th and the release date for a planned order
is October 12th. Our enhancement will then look ahead past the planning horizon by the
three day BfrD tolerance and prepare a firm-up message for printing.
These examples illustrate that our PaperSaver enhancement provides two general
benefits.
- First, it serves as a screen to shield the user from BPCS messages that have little real
value. Acting on messages of this genre typically introduce unnecessary noise into an MRP
system.
- Second, the enhancement searches for and presents actionable messages that the standard
BPCS MRP/MPS report would not have otherwise generated.
There's one other important benefit, of course:
- The PaperSaver saves trees!
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"Vanilla"
BPCS MRP200 Program
Results
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Paper Saver Results With Zero
Buffer Days Specified
(least
favorable scenario) |
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| Number
of planned items: |
33,201 |
33,201 |
| Total
number of exception messages generated: |
7,610 |
7,610 |
| Total
number of printed pages: |
almost 5,000 |
156 |
| Total
AS/400 execution time: |
Several hours plus significant print time. |
23 minutes
plus some print time. |
| Typical
user feelings: |
Users feel guilty because they never get around to reviewing all the
printed exception messages. |
Users feel great because their
job is more organized
and cut down
to a reasonable size. |
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"Vanilla" BPCS Functionality |
Paper Saver Functionality
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| Can
exception messages be printed sorted by type of message? |
no |
yes
The user has the option of printing in item
sequence or message sequence. |
| Can
"firm-up" and "release" messages be printed for a user-specified
period of future time? |
no |
yes
There is flexibility to look forward a
user-specified number of days for firm-up and release messages. |
| Can
users exclude one or more specific kinds of messages from the report? |
no |
yes
The user can exclude one or more message types
from the printed report. |
| Can
users adjust the start date of the exception message reporting? |
no |
yes
Users can specify the start date so as to
focus on messages from earlier or later time periods. |
If
the range of planner codes overlaps with the range of buyer codes, is there an easy way to
select exception messages for:
a. Only all planners?
b. Only all buyers?
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no, no |
yes, yes
Users have the option of printing messages for
only one buyer, or only one planner, or all buyers, or all planners, or for user defined
buyer/planner combinations. |
