Table of contents
Tip
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Imported inventories, imported inventory limits, initial inventories and frozen productions can be excluded from the optimization without having to delete all related data by using the Use checkbox
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There are two different ways to provide the Production App with initial conditions related to existing productions and inventories:
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Import existing productions and inventories from a snapshot of data pushed into the Production App by some external system.
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Specify initial productions and inventories one by one as a list of existing lots and inventories.
Tip
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The two methods can be combined, the sum of existing productions and inventories coming from each source is then considered.
Imported productions
This table is automatically populated when importing data from a snapshot for some specific compounds.
If some data are already present in the table, they are removed before importing the new ones.
Each imported production for a given combination of item and manufacturer is translated into an initial production (see below) for a given combination of product and production resource according to the Imported production mapping table.
Imported inventories
This is automatically populated when importing data from a snapshot for some specific compounds.
If some data are already present in the table, they are removed before importing the new ones.
Each imported inventory for a given combination of item and warehouse is translated into an initial inventory (see below) for a given product according to Imported production mapping table and made available to next production resources according to the Imported inventory mapping table.
Imported inventory limits
This table lists additional constraints on the imported inventory availability. User can define a maximum percentage and a maximum size (optional) from the imported inventory(ies) that can be used for the project. This is typically used when the inventory is shared between multiple projects.
Initial productions
In order to define initial inventories (see below) available at the beginning of the planning horizon, one has first to define initial productions (lots) the initial inventories depend on.
There can be three reasons for an existing lot to be considered as an initial condition for the optimization:
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Usable inventory remains from the existing lot.
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Its manufacturing was started before the beginning of the planning horizon but will end in the future.
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It has been used as input ingredient in other existing lots and it plays a role in the determination of the expiry of these other existing lots.
Two types of initial productions can be entered:
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Initial productions for which initial inventories are still available.
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Initial productions that depend on other initial productions for the determination of the expiry, i.e., parent initial productions.
Tips
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If an initial production has no dependency (it does not depend on another production for the expiry determination), it is not required to enter its parent production.
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At least one of the manufacturing, availability or release dates must be entered. Missing date(s) are inferred based on available ones and lead-times defined for the corresponding production configuration.
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If an expiry date is entered, it overrides automatic calculation from the stability plan and possible further shelf-life extensions will be ignored for this initial lot. If left empty, the stability plan applies and the expiry date is computed the same way as for new lots.
Initial inventories
All remaining quantities still available for the planning horizon should be defined in this table.
An initial inventory can also be used to represent a lot whose production was started before the planning horizon but will become available after the beginning of the horizon. In this case, the availability date is used to specify when this initial inventory will become available, if this date is different from the release date (entered or inferred) of the corresponding initial production.
One initial production (one existing lot) can have multiple initial inventories (fractions) in case this
initial production has been divided into multiple parts, for example to be sent to different locations.
Depending on where the initial inventory is stored (at origin location or already at destination) and depending on the production flows, the possible next production resources that can use this initial inventory may have to be limited.
Frozen productions
Productions that are already planned in the future or should be enforced for some reason (e.g., time, size, or allocation already known) can be entered in this table. Nevertheless, some margin can still be left for optimization for the date and the size of the frozen production. Indeed, users can define minimum and maximum dates/sizes for each frozen production. However, if the date and/or the size are fixed, minimum and maximum dates and/or sizes should respectively be the same.
Users can also use parent lots to be used for a frozen production by ticking the Frozen parents checkbox . In this case, only parent lots defined in Parent initial inventories, Parent imported inventories and Parent frozen productions columns can be used.
This table can also be automatically populated by importing frozen productions from a previous result.
To learn how to import frozen productions, please read this article: How to import frozen productions (Production App)
For a given production resource and product, frozen productions are assumed to occur after possible initial productions and before possible new productions that might be recommended by the optimization.