ASCP

Advance Supply Chain Planning (ASCP) is a comprehensive, Internet-based planning solution that decides w hen and
w here supplies (for example, inventory, purchase orders and w ork orders) should be deployed w ithin an extended
supply chain.

The key capabilities of Oracle ASCP are given below

Multiorganization Planning
ASCP and SCP allow you to model complex supply chains and provide a unified plan for the entire supply chain.
Your model can include customer preferences (for example, w hich organizations can supply w hich customers),
multiple manufacturing and distribution organizations w ithin your enterprise, and your suppliers. In simple cases, you
might be able to model your supply chain using item and organization attributes. For more elaborate supply chains,
you can define sourcing rules and bills of distribution and apply different sets of assignments of those rules.

Holistic Planning
The term holistic planning w as coined by Oracle to suggest that one plan could meet all the needs typically
addressed by multiple plans in more traditional planning scenarios. Holistic planning eliminates or reduces the need
to keep multiple plans in synch. Specifically, holistic planning accommodates three dimensions of the planning
problem:

 One plan can accommodate the entire planning horizon, w ith the appropriate level of granularity at different
points along the horizon.
 One plan can accommodate the entire supply chain, from your customers, through the distribution and
manufacturing organizations w ithin your enterprise, and dow n to your suppliers.
 One plan can accommodate all manufacturing methods: discrete, repetitive, process, flow , and project- (or
contract-) based manufacturing.

Constraints
Unlike Oracle MRP planning, ASCP can respect various constraints on your production and distribution capabilities.
This capability, sometimes called finite planning or constrained planning, enables you to generate a plan
respecting material constraints, capacity constraints (including both manufacturing resource and transportation
capacity), or both. You can plan for detailed or aggregate resources, and you can use item routings or bills of
resource to control the granularity of the planning process.

You can enforce constraints selectively across the planning horizon. It may be important, for example, to recognize
material and capacity constraints in the near term to avoid creating a plan that you can’t execute. But at the far end of
the horizon, it may be more important to generate an unconstrained plan to determine how much additional capacity
you might need to meet the anticipated demand.

Constraint-based planning is a prerequisite for optimized planning—if there are no constraints, the assumption is that
you can do anything; there’s nothing to optimize.

Optim ization
ASCP includes the option to generate an optimized plan. In an optimized plan, the planning process determines the
relative cost of the different options available to it and chooses the “best” alternative based on those costs.Some of
those costs are naturally present in your ERP data, such as the cost of using a substitute item or an alternate
resource. Other costs are computed in planning by applying penalty factors to different events. For example, you
might assign a penalty factor of 50 percent to exceeding resource capacity (reflecting that you w ould pay time-and-a-
half if you had to w ork overtime); you might assign another penalty factor to satisfying a late demand, to artificially
add cost to late production. In addition, optimization is influenced by the w eight you give to each of three explicit
planning objectives: Maximize Plan Profit, Maximize On-Time Delivery, and Maximize Inventory Turns.

Integrated Performance Management

ASCP incorporates performance management features from Oracle’s Business Intelligence System (BIS). The
Planner Workbench for ASCP displays four Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each plan:

 Inventory Turns The inventory turns you could achieve if you executed the plan as suggested
 On-Time Delivery The percentage of ontime delivery, to customer orders or to internal orders, that the plan
projects
 Margin Percentage The anticipated margin (profit) that w ould be generated by follow ing the suggestions of
the plan
 Resource Utilization The utilization of resources projected by the plan

Release 11i.5 ASCP provides additional KPIs; right-click the w orkbench to select the follow ing indicators:

1. Margin The margin amount (i.e., currency) that w ould be generated by follow ing the plan suggestions
2. Cost Breakdow n A comparison of four separate costs—Production Cost, Inventory Carrying Cost, Penalty
Cost, and Purchasing Cost

You can use BIS to define targets for each of these KPIs. The Planner Workbench displays a graph for each of these
KPIs and their targets so that you can easily assess the effectiveness of a particular planning strategy. ASCP also
provides enhanced exception messages and uses Oracle Workflow to provide notification and response processing
for all those exceptions.

Plan Types
ASCP uses basically the same plan types as traditional MRP, but uses slightly different names:

 Distribution Plan equates to a DRP, or Distribution Requirements Plan.

 Manufacturing Plan equates to an MRP, or Material Requirements Plan.
 Production Plan equates to a Master Production Schedule, although there are significant differences
betw een the earlier MPS and a Production Plan defined in ASCP.

Architecture

ASCP is able to run on a separate server from your ERP system. This architecture eliminates any performance
degradation on your transactions systems w hen a plan is running, and it enables you to run plans more often and
more quickly than w ith traditional planning systems. (If you w ill run your plans overnight or at nonpeak hours, you can
use the same server for both ASCP and ERP.)

The separate-server architecture also facilitates planning for multiple ERP systems; you can define multiple ERP
instances to plan, collect their data to the planning server, and then run one single, consolidated plan w ith the
aggregate data.
Because planning is designed to run on a separate server from ERP, you must explicitly publish the planning data
back to the source instance to perform certain activities in your ERP system. The Push Plan Information concurrent
program provides this function. For example, if you w ant to create flow schedules from an ASCP plan, you must run
this program.

Whether you run ASCP on a separate machine, a single machine, or the same database instance as your ERP
system, the process of setting up and running ASCP plans is unchanged—you must still define the source instances
that planning w ill use and you must still collect data from those instances to the planning server.

ASCP Setup

Oracle Advanced Planning Suite has a component architecture that separates the transaction data and associated
processing (for example, inventory receipts and order entry) in a source instance from the planning calculations
done in a destination instance . This allow s planning calculations to be done on a different physical machine
than the machine that performs transactions and results in better system response. It also allow s planning
calculations (demand planning, inventory planning, supply planning and order promising) to be applied
simultaneously to information from across multiple source instances, w hich is useful w hen transaction information for
a global supply chain is spread across multiple instances. Oracle Demand Planning also uses athird instance,
an Express database , to hold data w hile multidimensional manipulation of demand data occurs.

The source can be any ERP system, but out-of-the-box integration to the Oracle Advanced Planning Suite destination
instance (planning server) exists in some cases but not in all cases.

Set up for Oracle Advanced Planning Suite consists of steps for the source, steps for the destination, and steps for
Express.

APS may be implemented in tw o possible configurations:

Centralized Planning
A centralized configuration implies that the ERP applications and APS share the same Oracle instance on one server.
Decentralized Planning
A decentralized configuration implies that the ERP applications and APS are executing w ithin tw o separate Oracle
instances, possibly on the same server.

 Both configurations are supported using a consistent architecture w ith the sole distinction being that the
decentralized configuration requires the use of database links to pull data into the MSC data store.
 APS nomenclature employs Source and Destination w hen speaking of the ERP transaction data store and
the planning data. Data, at the source, is collected into the destination or operational datastore ( ODS)
w here planning activities occur. If a centralized configuration is implemented, both the source and
destination are operating w ithin the same Oracle instance.

In Oracle Advanced Planning, transaction processing and planning occur in separate database instances, the source
instance and the destination instance. If you deploy any Oracle Advanced Planning module using this multi-instance
configuration, please note the important restriction that both source and destination database instances must be on
the same major release of the Oracle database; either both instances must be on Oracle 8i or both instanc es must be
on Oracle 9i. The configuration source on 8i w ith destination on 9i is not supported and the configuration source on 9i
w ith destination on 8i is not supported.
The follow ing figure is a flow chart illustrating the source and destination setup steps.
Multti-Machine Im plementation

For small implementations, source, destination, and Express can reside on the same machine and be in the same
instance.
For larger implementations w here system throughput is more important, the various instances can be deployed on
separate machines. A tw o-machine deployment configuration is appropriate w hen the size of the demand planning
data is relatively small.

A three-machine deployment allow s for the manipulation of high-dimensionality, large-scale demand planning data to
occur on a machine separate from the planning calculations done on the planning server. The follow ing figure
illustrates this configuration.

The Advanced Supply Chain Planning concurrent manager may also be deployed on a separate machine.

Setup Flow chart

Implementing APS in centralized mode is only possible w hen collecting from an 11i source.A centralized
implementation does not require database links. Since the planning flexfields are included in 11i, submitting the
concurrent process, Create Planning Flexfields is not required. All other setup discussed in this document are
required.
Setup Steps for the Source

1. Install the source instance patch

Before beginning the functional setup of the source instance(s), a patch must be applied that w ill create several new
concurrent programs, flexfields, profile options, and database objects on the source database. The patch that is
required is determined by the versions of the application and database on the source instance.
When successfully applied, the patch should create the Create Planning Flexfields, Create Global ATP Flexfields,
and Refresh Snapshot programs under the All SCP Reports Request group.

2. Create a database link pointing to the planning server.

Note: Before beginning the installation of the source patch, count all (if any) invalid database objects. If after the
patch is installed there are more invalid objects than before, there w as a problem w ith the patch application.

A database link must be established on the source instance that points to the destination (planning) instance. This
database link w ill be referenced in a new ly created profile option, MRP: ATP Database Link.

3. Create an Advanced Supply Chain Planner responsibility. You must create a responsibility in the source
instance w ith the name 'Advanced Supply Chain Planner'. The responsibility name must match Advanced Supply
Chain Planner exactly. During the data collection process w hich runs on the destination server, the Refresh Snapshot
program is launched automatically in the source from this responsibility. The refresh snapshot process w ill not
complete properly if the responsibility name is not correct.

The Create Planning Flexfields concurrent program creates new segment definitions in existing descriptive flex fields
to hold data that may be required for constrained and/or optimized planning. The program also populates profile
values w ith the value corresponding to the descriptive flexfield attribute number for each attribute (planning
parameter) created.

4. Launch the Create Planning Flexfields report from the new ly created Advanced Supply Chain Planner
responsibility. The parameters that must be set for the report are the attributes that you w ish to utilize for the new
flexfield definitions. The list of values for each parameter lists only the available attributes in the subject descriptive
flexfield.

After submitting the program, eleven additional processes should be spaw ned. These jobs are compiling the
descriptive flexfield view s. Check that the profile values corresponding to each flexfield attribute w ere populated w ith
the correct attribute number. Some profile values may retain the value of unassigned after the Create Planning
Flexfield program completed. You must change any unassigned profiles to the attribute number corresponding to the
flexfield attribute w here the new segment w as defined.

5. Create the Global Order Prom ising flexfields.

The Create Global ATP Flexfields is very similar to the Create Planning Flexfields program. It creates new flexfield
segments to hold global ATP data at the item, BOM, routing, and resource levels. The same process, including
w arnings and suggestions, applies for the Create Global ATP Flexfield program.

6. Set up source data w ith BOMs, resources, routings, supplier data, flexfields, purchasing information, item
masters, Oracle BIS targets, and any other data required by your plans.
7. Set profile values.
If Global Order Promising is going to be utilized, the follow ing tw o additional profile options must be set.
The MRP: ATP Database Link profile option must be set w ith the database link. The profile value is the name of the
database link that resides on the source and points to the destination. There is no validation on this profile value. If
Global Order Promising is not utilized, this need not be set.
The INV: External ATP profile must be set to Global ATP. This is a choice from the list of values. If Global ATP is not
utilized, this need not be set.

8. Execute the Refresh Snapshot concurrent program .

The Refresh Snapshot process must be run on the source. This concurrent program is available in the Advanced
Supply Chain Planner responsibility created earlier. The process has no parameters to be set at run time. Verify that
the process completes w ithout error.

Setup Steps for the Destination

1. Install the destination instance patches.

2. Create a database link pointing to each source. These links w ill be needed w hen defining instances later on in this
setup procedure.

3. Define the source instances to be collected from.

The define instances setup establishes the means of communication betw een the source and destination instances. It
also specifies the organizations in the source database for w hich data w ill be pulled.

4. From the Navigator, choose Setup > Instances. Do not access this form w hile the collections process is running; it
locks a table that the collections process needs to complete successfully.
The Application Instances w indow appears.

Enter each of the Application instances for w hich you w ould like the Planning Server to plan. Complete the fields and
flags in the Application Instances w indow as show n in the table below . Enter the organizations on each of the
instances from w hich to collect the Planning data and plan for on the Planning Server by clicking Organizations. The
Organizations w indow appears. Select the organizations for a particular instance. Be sure to select the master
organization.

Running Collections

Oracle ASCP has a component architecture that allow s a single instance of Oracle ASCP to plan one or more
transaction instances. The transaction instances can be a mix ture of releases. The Oracle ASCP planning instance
(referred to as the planning server) can sit on the same instance as one of the transaction instances, or be a separate
instance altogether. In either case (even if the planning server shares an instance w ith the transaction instance to be
planned), data to be planned is brought from the transaction instance(s) to the planning server via a process
called Collection.

Oracle ASCP uses a data store based on the planning data model that is exposed through interface tables. The data
is pulled from the designated data sources into its data store; Oracle ASCP Collections are responsible for
synchronization as changes are made to the data sources.
The configurability of the collections is enabled through a pull program based on AOL concurrent program
architecture. Thus, for example, different business objects can be collected at different frequencies. Supplies and
demands, w hich change frequently, can be collected frequently. Routings and resources, w hich change relatively less
often, can be collected less frequently.

Standard collections process: Using the standard collections process, you can manually run three types of collection
methods including a complete refresh, a net change refresh, or a targeted refresh on specific business entities.

Continuous collections process: The continuous collections process is an automated process of data collection that
efficiently synchronizes the data on the planning server by looking up the sources. If you opt for continuous
collections, the system
automatically determine the type of collection that needs to be run on entities selected by you. The continuous
collections process collects data from the sources w ith the least user intervention. The Continuous Collections
concurrent program
performs continuous collections.

Definitions:
You should be familiar w ith the follow ing terms before examining the data collections architecture:
Applications Data Store (ADS): The set of source data tables in each transaction instance that contain data relevant
to planning.
Data Pull: The data collection process consists of the Data Pull and the Operational Data Store (ODS) Load. The
collection process lets you collect across several Oracle aplication versions. It supports several configurations. The
tw o types of collections process are standard and continuous.
Operational Data Store (ODS): The planning data tables in the planning server that act as destination for the
collected data from each of the data sources (both ADS and Legacy).
Planning Data Store (PDS): The outputs of the planning process. The PDS resides in the same data tables as the
ODS. How ever, PDS data are marked w ith plan IDs that show w hich plans they correspond to, w hile ODS data are
marked w ith plan ID = -1.
Collection Workbench: The Collection Workbench is a user interface for view ing data collected over to the planning
server from the transaction instances. The functionality here is similar to Planner Workbench functionality. For more
information on the Planner Workbench

Standard Data Collection: The standard data collection process enables you to select the mode of data collection
from a complete refresh, an incremental refresh, or a targeted refresh.
Standard data collection consists of the follow ing processes:

 Pull program: Collects the data from the ADS and stores the data into the staging tables. This pull program
is a registered AOL concurrent program that could be scheduled and launc hed by a system administrator. If
you are using a legacy program, you must w rite your ow n pull program.
 ODS Load: A PL/SQL program w hich performs the data transform and moves the data from the staging
tables to the ODS. This collection program is a registered AOL concurrent program that could be scheduled
and launched by the system administrator.

Continuous Data Collection: The continuous data collection process automates the process of looking up the
sources to populate the tables on the planning server. With the least user intervention, the continuous data collection
process determines the type of collection to perform on each type of entity .
Collection Methods

Collecting data can take a significant amount of time compared to the time for the overall planning cycle. Oracle
Advanced Supply Chain Planning (ASCP) provides a collection method that allow s the collections duration to be
reduced in cases w here information about some - but not all - planning-related business entities on the planning
server needs to be updated.

There are three collection methods:

■ The Com plete Refresh method clears all transaction data for all business entities from the planning server (for the
source instance being collected), then copies over information about the user -selected entities. This method can be
time consuming.
■ The Targeted Refresh method clears transaction data for only the user-selected business entities from the
planning server, and then copies the entity information over from the transaction instance. Information about
nonselected entities remains intact on the planning server. All planning business entities are supported by Targeted
Refresh collections.
■ The Net Change Refresh method copies only incremental changes to business entities to the planning server (and
is thus faster), but is supported mainly for demand and supply business entities only.

When To Use Each Collection Method

You should use Complete Refresh the first time you perform collections from a source instance to the planning
server. You may also w ish to use complete refresh collections after a significant proportion of the setup da ta in your
transaction system has been altered, and you w ould like to make a fresh copy of all source instance business entities
(items, bills of material, sourcing rules, resources, and so on) on the planning server. You typically collect all business
entities in a Complete Refresh Collection.

You should use Net Change Refresh if you w ould like to update the supply and demand picture on the planning
server as quickly as possible, and the incremental changes to supply and demand in the source instance since the
last collection have not been extensive relative to the existing (already collected) body of supply and demand
information. In this case, Net Change Refresh is the fastest w ay to achieve the desired update of the planning server
operational data store, because it copies over from the source instance only the incremental changes in supply and
demand since the last collection.

You should use Targeted Refresh if you w ould like to update the planning server information for some (but not all)
business entities, and some of these entities fall outside the category of supply and demand entities supported by Net
Change Refresh. For example, to update the planning server w ith a new ly rebuilt manufacturing calendar, you w ould
run Targeted Refresh collections for just the
calendar business entity. Data on the planning server about all other business entities w ould remain unaffected by
this collection.

You w ould also use Targeted Refresh (in lieu of Net Change Refresh) to bring over the latest picture of supply and
demand to the planning server in cases w hen the incremental changes to supply and demand on the source instance
since the last collection are very extensive. In this case, the update mechanism employed by Targeted Refresh
collections (w holesale deletion follow ed by rebuilding of data on the planning server) is faster than the mechanism
employed by Net Change Refresh collections (incremental insertions into existing data on the planning server).

If you w ant the mode of data collection to be determined by the system, select Continuous Collections.
Collection Strategy
Major features of the collection process include:

Multiple Source Instances

You can register any number of source data instances and non-Oracle data sources on each Oracle ASCP
installation.

Pull Architecture
You can collect new source data instances into Oracle ASCP w ith minimal impact. The data is pulled from the source
data instance by Oracle ASCP. Each instance can have its ow n refresh interval. A failure in one instance w ill not
affect data collections from other instances.

Detect Net Change to Synchronize Oracle Applications and Oracle ASCP

You can synchronize the data in Oracle Applications transaction instances and the Oracle ASCP planning server in a
net change mode. Thus, only the changed source data is collected each time, reducing the computational burden on
the collection process.

Multi-Process Collection Architecture

You can enhance the performance of the pull program by distributing the tasks to multiple collection w orkers.

Data Consolidation
The collection program can consolidate the entities show n in the follow ing table across instances based on the
corresponding user-defined keys. For all the entities not described in the table, the instance ID together w ith the entity
key in each instance uniquely identifies each row .

Projects/Tasks, and Seiban Num bers

You can consider Projects, Tasks, and Seiban Numbers to be unique w ithin the context of an Oracle Applications
instance; no consolidation is required.
Support for Several Configurations
You can perform centralized and decentralized configurations based on the scale of the enterprise and specific
business needs. Source data applications and Oracle ASCP can reside on one server or on separate servers.

Architecture
Oracle ASCP’s data collection architecture, show n in the figure below , depicts the data objects, procedures, and data
flow betw een source data and Oracle ASCP. The major repositories are ADS, ODS, and PDS. Procedures enable
data cleansing, data collecting, data communication, and net-change handling betw een data repositories.

When Oracle ASCP and its source data reside on the same instance, communication betw een them is enabled by
PL/SQL based public API procedures or interface tables. In a distributed environment, procedure calls are made
using database links.
Defining Supply Chain Plans

Oracle ASCP can generate planned orders for an entire supply chain w ithin a single multi-organization supply chain
plan. This is illustrated below w ith a sample supply chain; and' Sample Bill of Material.

In this sample supply chain, SF1 and SF2 are subassembly facilities, AF1 is a final assembly facility, DC1 and DC2
are distribution centers, C1, C2, C3 and C4 are customers and S1, S2, S3 and S4 are suppliers. A single plan of the
entire supply chain has the follow ing inputs:

 Demand quantity (forecast + actual sales orders) for A 01 at DC1 for each of the time buckets in the planning
horizon. This is captured in a Master Demand Schedule (MDS) for DC1.
 Demand quantity for A01 at DC2 for each of the time buckets in the planning horizon. This is captured in an
MDS for DC2.

 The plan output contains planned order quantities, start dates, and completion dates for A01 and all of its
components and subcomponents.

Prerequisites for Running a Global Supply Chain Plan

To run a global supply chain plan, the follow ing prerequisites are required:

 Each planned organization must be set up on the source instance.

 Collection programs must be directed to collect data from the transactional instance of each planned
organization.
 Items to be planned must be enabled in each organization that can produce ( or distribute) the item. During
item setup, items can be enabled in all organizations or only in specific organizations.
 Routings and/or Bills of Resource for each planned item must exist or be enabled in each organization that
is planned centrally.
 Suppliers and sourcing rules must be enabled in all relevant organizations.

Advantages of the Single Plan

The single-plan approach is advantageous for the follow ing reasons:

 Least planning effort: Few er plans need to be generated; few er planning servers need to be deployed and
maintained.
 Data consistency: Without the single-plan ability, requirements must be repeatedly transferred upstream
w ithin the supply chain to each successive supplier facility. Each transfer presents an opportunity for
miscommunication or data loss.
 Global optimization: Intelligent trade-offs betw een the performance of individual facilities (as measured by,
for example, plan profit) can be made because Oracle ASCP optimizes the supply chain planned orders as a
w hole.
 Minimum communication lag: The effects of decisions made at the highest level of the supply chain are
immediately visible at the low est level of the supply chain. If individual facility plans are used, there is at
least a one planning-run duration lag betw een the receipt of requirements at a facility and the passing of the
dependent requirements to the facility's suppliers. Moreover, this lag is often much greater due to
differences in w orking hours betw een upstream and dow nstream facilities (for example, if the facilities are in
different time zones). Also, the planning cycles of upstream and dow nstream facilities may not be
synchronized (for example, customer facility AF1 runs its plan on Monday, w hile supplier facility SF1 runs its
plan on Sunday). This results in even longer communication lags. The overall effect of plan communication
lag is to make the supply chain less responsive to meeting changes in customer demand
Choosing Plan Classes

A big difference betw een ASCP and earlier planning methods is the option of planning to constraints. Although Oracle
has supported simultaneous material and capacity planning for a long time, the planning engine has alw ays planned
to meet due dates; capacity planning has been unconstrained, or infinite. ASCP provides the option of constraint -
based planning, or finite capacity planning.

Furthermore, you can choose to plan to capacity (including transportation capacity) constraints, material constraints
(including modeling the capacity of suppliers to provide material), or both; and you can specify different constraints
and different levels of granularity in the different periods of the planning horizon.

Oracle ASCP allow s for the follow ing options for generating plans.

1. Unconstrained
2. Resource Constrained
3. Material Constrained
4. Material and Resource Constrained
5. Optimized

Before discussing these options in the table below , please take note of the follow ing key concepts.
Constraints
Oracle ASCP lets you prioritize how you enforce Capacity Constraints or Dem and Due Dates . Whichever
constraint takes precedence over the other is the hard constraint; the other is the soft constraint. You must choose
one and only one type of constraint.

Enforce Dem and Due Dates

If you choose to enforce Demand Due Dates (setting Demand Due Dates as a hard constraint), then primary
resources are used and loaded to capacity to satisfy demand due dates. The system also evaluates alternate
resources if additional capacity is required. If there is insufficient capacity to meet demand due dates, the primary
resource is overloaded. The choice of w hether to use an alternate resource or overload capacity depends on cost
considerations if optimization is selected. Oracle ASCP returns exception messages if capacity is overloaded.

Enforce Capacity Constraints

If you choose to enforce Capacity Constraints (setting Capacity Constraints as a hard constraint), then resources are
loaded to their limit to satisfy demand (if required). Unsatisfied demand is pushed into the future. In this case, Oracle
ASCP returns late replenishment exception messages.

Optim ization
Oracle ASCP allow s for multiple levels of optimization in generating plans. These are described in the table below
along w ith the situations under w hich each w ould be most useful.
The scope of optimization levels is summarized in the table below :

Creating Supply Chain Plans

You can have multiple supply chain plans. Before you launch a plan for the first time you must name it.
Copying Supply Chain Plans
In addition to creating a plans by creation, you can create a new plan by copying information from one plan to it. Do
this if you w ant to:

 Save the results of a particular plan run before you re-run the plan
 Begin using a new plan name w ith the results of the latest run of another plan.
 Create a new plan w ith the same plan options as an existing plan

Use the copy plan function to make a copy of an existing plan. If memory bases planner flat files do not exist, Copy
Plan process completes w ith the w arning - WARNING: The copy plan operation completed successfully. How ever,
some auxiliary data files could not be copied. Therefore, you w ill not be able to run online planner. You can re-launch
the plan from the Navigator.
Create a global supply chain plan
Navigator to Supply Chain Plan > Names
Enter the below details as required
Name: Define a plan name.
Description: Define a plan description.
ATP: If this is selected, this plan w ill be used for availability check. If the plan is used as a 24 x 7 ATP plan, the
planning process may never sw itch to a new version of the plan from the copied plan after the original plan has
completed successfully ; consider setting profile options MSC: Action Allow ed on ATP 24 x 7 Plan While Running and
MSC: ATP Synchronization Dow ntime (minutes).
Production: If this is selected, this is a product plan. Planned orders w ill be automatically released w ithin their release
time fence.
Notifications: If this is selected, exception message notifications for the plan are enabled.
Plan Type Valid values are Manufacturing Plan, Production Plan, and Distribution Plan. This setting interacts w ith the
Planning Method item attribute to determine w hich subset of the items that pass the condition imposed by the
Planned Items parameter are planned.

Choosing a Plan Type

In Oracle ASCP you can launch three type of plans:

 Production Plan
 Manufacturing Plan
 Distribution Plan

Each creates time-phased planned orders that satisfy independent and dependent demand w hile seeking to respect
material and resource constraints. A choice of plan types lets you tailor the degree of subset planning that is
performed for the supply chain: f rom a single, global supply chain plan dow n to manually adjusted plans for each item
in each organization of the supply chain.

MPS plans support the follow ing functionality:

 You can select routings for a production plan w hile scheduling resources.
 For production plans that have routings, you can view the Gantt chart in the Planner Workbench.

To do this, the three types of plans need to be used in conjunction w ith the MRP Planning Type item attribute that is
set for each item. Possible values for this attribute are:

 MRP Planning
 MPS Planning
 MRP/DRP Planned
 MPS/DRP Planned
 DRP Planned

The below table lists the controls that determine the items that are planned in the plan and their possible values:
Setting Plan Options
This section describes how to set plan options. The plan options appear in the follow ing tabbed regions:

 Main
 Aggregation
 Organizations
 Constraints
 Optimization
 Decision Rules

To access the plan options do either of the follow ing:

 Go directly from the Navigator

 Access the Plan Names form, select a plan, and click Plan Options.

Planned Items: This parameter and the Plan Type field in the Supply Chain Names w indow , control the
items that are planned in the supply chain plan. An item must satisfy conditions imposed by both parameters
before being included in the supply chain plan.
Assignment Set: The assignment set that holds the sourcing rules and bills of distribution that define the
rules for material flow w ithin your supply chain.

Material Scheduling Method: Choose from Operation Start Date or Order Start Date scheduling methods.
If you choose Operation Start Date, material is scheduled to arrive at the start of the operation for w hich it is
required.
If you choose Order Start Date, material is scheduled to arrive at the start of the order for w hich it is
required. Order State Date is usually an earlier date than the Operation Start Date and therefore this
selection represents the more conservative planning logic of the tw o options.

Demand Priority Rule: When ASCP does detailed scheduling, it schedules demands one by one. The rule
specified here dictates the order in w hich demands w ill be considered during detailed scheduling, and thus
w hich demands w ill get the first opportunities to take up available materials and resource capacities.

End Item Substitution Set: If Decision Rules tabbed region > Use End Item Substitution is selected, select a
substitution set. These are defined in the Planning Details - Substitute w indow . You can use a set of
substitution relationships to be effective for a given plan by selecting the substitution set as an option for the
plan. This allow s you to run simulations of possible substitutions and evaluate performance indicators given
possible future substitutions.

Overw rite: Overw rite planned orders.

Demand Class: If you w ant to limit a production plan to a demand class, enter it. This field is active only for a
Production Plan/MPS schedule.

Demand Time Fence Control: Check this option to enforce demand time fence control.

Append Planned Orders: Appends new planned orders to current plan.

Planning Time Fence Control: Check this option to enforce item attribute planning time fence control.

Move Jobs to PIP: Check this option if you w ant to generate planned order supply even in the absence of
demand in order to ensure that inventory is held on the manufacturing floor only for items designated as
Planned Inventory Points.

Display Key Performance Indicators : Check this option to calculate key performance indicators for the plan.

Lot for Lot : Check this option to force the creation of a separate supply for each demand. This prevents
creation of aggregate supplies that satisfy multiple demands.

Do Not Spread Forecast : The planning engine should use forecast entries as they exist for planning.

Spread Forecast Evenly : The planning engine should spread aggregate forecast demand evenly across the
daily buckets from the w orkday calendar.

Consume by Forecast Bucket : The forecast consumption process does not search outside of the
consumption bucket for forecasts and sales orders except in daily buckets.
 Backw ard Days : If you are bringing in unconsumed forecast scenarios from Oracle Demand Planning as
demand schedules into Oracle ASCP and w ould like to do forecast consumption inside ASCP (as opposed
to bringing in preconsumed forecasts contained in master demand schedules as demand schedules into
Oracle ASCP), then set the forecasts consumption backw ard days parameter here. This parameter allow s a
sales order demand to consume forecast demand even if the forecast de mand is up to the specified number
of days earlier

than the sales order demand. This parameter applies only to Oracle Demand Planning scenarios that are
used as demand schedules in Oracle ASCP plans. Please see the section

Forw ard Days : This parameter allow s a sales order demand to consume forecast demand even if the
forecast demand is up to the specified number of days later than the sales order demand.

Select this option (the default) to calculate pegging information. Oracle ASCP traces supply information for
an item to its corresponding end demand details, w hich you canthen view in a graphical display. This field is
checked by default.

Peg Supplies by Demand Priority : If Enable Pegging is selected, check this option to calculate pegging so
that supplies are pegged to demands in demand
priority order (as defined by you in a priority rule) w ithin the time period set by the profile option MSC: Peg
by Demand Priority.

Reservation Level : If Enable Pegging is selected, choose a reservation level - Planning Group, Project,
Project-Task, or None.

Hard Pegging Level : If Enable Pegging is selected, choose a hard pegging lev el - Project, Project-Task, or
None

Aggregation
Plan Start Date: If you have never run the plan, this field displays today's date. If you have run the plan, this field
displays the planning horizon start date of the last run.

Plan End Date: Calculated planning horizon end date based on your entries in Buckets and the ow ning organization
calendar.

Start Date: Calculated start date for each bucket based on your entries in Buckets and the ow ning organization
calendar. The value for the Days column is the Plan Start Date.

Buckets: Number of buckets of this bucket type.

Items: Choose to plan at either the Item level or Product Family level. If you select Items in the first bucket, the other
buckets can be set to either Items or Product Family. How ever, if you select Product Family in the first bucket, the
remaining buckets are set to Product Family by default.

Resources: Choose to plan at either the Individual level or Aggregate level. If you select Individual in the first bucket,
the other buckets can be set to either Individual or Aggregate. If you select Aggregate in the first bucket, the
remaining buckets are set to Aggregate by default.

Routings: Choose to plan at either the Routings or BOR level. Whatever level you select in any of the buckets, all the
rest of the buckets are assigned that level by default.

Organizations
Org: An organization w hich this plan should plan.

Net WIP: Select to consider discrete jobs and other production orders as supply in the planning demand/supply
netting process.

Net Reservations: If checked, ASCP generates pegging of on-hand supply to sales orders that matches the
reservations recorded in the source transaction system.

Net Purchases: Select to consider purchase orders, purchase requisitions, in-transit shipments and other
nonproduction order scheduled receipts as supply in the planning demand/supply netting process. This option covers
all scheduled receipts not covered by the Net WIP option.

Plan Safety Stock: Select to consider plan safety stock demand and supply in the planning demand/supply netting
process.

Include Sales Order: Select to invoke forecast consumption w ithin ASCP for the selected organization. Check this if
the demand schedules for the organization are unconsumed forecasts. Uncheck this if the demand schedules for the
organization are consumed forecasts plus sales orders in the form of master demand schedules.

Bill of Resource: Select Bill of Resources from the list of values.

Simulation Set: Select a Simulation Set from the list of values. A simulation set is a set of adjustments to the base
availability calendar of a resource, and is defined via the Oracle Bills of Material Department Resources form. You
can define different simulation sets to model different availability scenarios (for example, the base availability
calendar reflects 5 day operations; simulation set 1 reflects w orking 6 day operations; simulation set 2 reflects 7 day
operations). The planning engine applies the simulation set to all
resources in the organization.

Oracle Enterprise Asset Management plans maintenance activity and creates maintenance w ork orders w hich may
specify shutdow n of equipment resources. If you are using Oracle Enterprise Asset Management, you can pass your
maintenance dow ntimes to the planning engine. To plan for these shutdow ns in Oracle Advanced Supply Chain
Planning, run the Oracle Enterprise Asset Management Load Equipment Maintenance Dow ntime concurrent process.

The process creates a simulation set w ith the dow ntimes recorded as capacity changes for reduced hours. You can
specify the simulation set in the Organizations tabbed region of the Plan Options w indow . When the plan is run, the
planning engine uses this simulation set to calculate the reduction in the available capacity of resources due to
maintenance dow ntime. The planning engine plans production activities for these resources after considering the
reduction in available capacity. You can view the impact of this change on the resource availability and usage profiles
in the Planner Workbench.

Demand Schedule: Select the names of demand schedules, forecasts, and plans that drive this plan.

Interplant: If selected, the planning engine uses only interorganization orders and demands from interorganization
planned orders. If cleared, the planning engine uses demands from all planned orders.

Supply Schedules: Select the name of supply schedules that participate in this plan.
Subinventory Netting: Opens the Subinventory Netting w indow .

Using an Existing Plan as a Dem and Schedule For New Plan

The plan for one organization can be used as a demand (or demand schedule) for the plan of another organization.

Note: Users can collect forecasts into the APS planning server. Optionally, they can choose to consume forecasts by
sales orders
w hen they run ASCP plans. Forecasts are consumed if the Include Sales Order check box in the Organizations tab of
the Plan Options
w indow is checked. For multilevel ATO items, forecasts are consumed at all levels if the forecast explosion has
occurred in the
source instance prior to the collection.

1. Choose Supply Chain Plan > Names to create a new plan for the organization that w ill use an existing plan as a
source.
The Supply Chain Plan Names w indow appears.
2. Select Plan Options. The Plan Options w indow appears.
3. Choose the Organizations tab.
4. Specify the plan name to be used as a source for the new plan in the Demand Schedule portion of the w indow .
5. Click Subinventory Netting. The Subinventory Netting w indow appears.
Constraints

Constrained Plan: If selected, Enforce Demand Due Dates is selected, all fields in the tabbed region are updateable
w ith all constraints defaulted to Yes. The default is cleared. You cannot set all Resource Constraints and Material
Constraints to No. If you set any Resource Constraints to Yes, you cannot clear Calculate Resource Requirements.

Enforce Demand Due Dates: Select if you w ant demand due dates to be your hard constraint (that is, respected in
lieu of material and resource capacity constraints if there is conflict)

Enforce Capacity Constraints: Select if you w ant material and resource capacity constraints to be respected in lieu of
demand due date constraints if there is a conflict.

Start Date: Displays the start date for each bucket type.

Buckets: Displays the number of buckets of this bucket type.

Resource Constraints: Select Yes to consider resource constraints.

Material Constraints: Select Yes to consider material constraints.

Minutes Bucket Size (in Days) : Specify the number of minute buckets in the Days bucket type.

Hours Bucket Size (in Days): Specify the number of hours buckets in the Days bucket type.

Days Bucket Size (in Days): Specify the number of days buckets in the Days bucket type.
Calculate Resource Requirements : If selected, the program w ill calculate resource capacity utilization.

Planned Resources: Select All Resources or Bottleneck Resources. If you have defined bottleneck resource groups
in Oracle Bills of Material and you w ant to detail schedule only the bottleneck resources, select Bottleneck Resources
and enter a Bottleneck Resource Group.

Bottleneck Resource Group: If you have defined bottleneck resource groups in Oracle Bills of Material and you w ant
to detail schedule only the bottleneck resources, select its name.
Optimization

 Optim ize: Select if you are running an optimized plan. Before selecting, verify that you selected Constraints
tabbed region, Constrained Plan field. If you clear, you cannot enter any other information in this tabbed
region.
 Enforce Sourcing Constraints: Select if you w ant to enforce the sourcing splits in the item sourcing rules.
For an optimized plan, the planning engine may override these sourcing splits if it results in less cost. For
unconstrained and constrained plans, the planning engine respects these sourcing splits w ithout regard to
this option.

1. Maximize inventory turns: Specify a w eighting percentage from 0 to 1.

2. Maximize plan profit: Specify a w eighting percentage from 0 to 1.
3. Maximize on-time delivery: Specify a w eighting percentage from 0 to 1.

 Exceeding material capacity %: Enter a numerical value to quantify the impact of exceeding material
capacity. For example, if you enter 50, the penalty factor is 50%.
 Exceeding resource capacity %: Enter a numerical value to quantify the impact of exceeding res ource
capacity. For example, if you enter 50, the penalty factor is 50%.
 Exceeding transportation capacity %: Enter a numerical value to quantify the impact of exceeding
transportation capacity. For example, if you enter 50, the penalty factor is 50%.
  Demand lateness %: Enter a numerical value to quantify the impact of late demand. For example, if you
enter 50, the penalty factor is 50%.

Decision Rules

This tabbed region is available as follow s:

 Unconstrained plans: It is never available.

 Constrained plans: It is available only if profile option MSO: Enable Decision Rules is Yes.
 Optimized plans (Optimization tabbed region, Optimize is selected): It is alw ay s available. For buy items in
unconstrained plans and constrained plans in w hich this tabbed region is not available, you can duplicate
the functionality of this region’s Use Alternate Sources parameter; set profile option MSC: Enable Enhanced
Sourcing to Yes. You cannot duplicate this functionality for transfers from other organizations.

When this tabbed region is enabled, the planning engine does not consider the profile option MSC: Enable Enhanced
Sourcing.

 Use End Item Substitution: If selected, use end item substitute prior to creating new planned orders. If
cleared, use only the demanded item. Enter the End Item Substitution Set in the Main tabbed region.
 Use Alternate Resources: If selected, use primary resource and use alternate resource only if necessary. If
cleared, use only primary resources.
 Use Substitute Components: If selected, use primary components and use substitute components only if
necessary. If cleared, use only primary components only.
 Use Alternate BOM/Routing: If selected, use primary routings and use alternates only if necessary. If
cleared, use only primary bills of material and routings.
 Use Alternate Sources: If selected, use primary sources and use alternate sources only if necessary. If
cleared, use primary sources only. The planning engine does not use alternate sources (rank 2 or higher) as
a sources of supply