QUESTIONNAIRE

SUBJECT: Advance Planning and Scheduling

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1. Planning

a. What are the various sources from which demand gets generated?b. What are the feeders to your MRP run?c. How do you do you’re forecasting?d. Do you go for focused forecasting?e. Do you populate forecast information from other sources such as legacy

systems?f. How do you consume your forecasts?g. Do you use demand classes to classify the diff. sources of demand?h. Do you use Master Production and Master Demand Schedules?i. What are the objectives you want to consider when optimizing a plan?j. What are the constraints you consider when running a plan?k. Do you want supplier capacity also to be considered as one of your

constraints?l. What are the kinds of Organizations you consider when you model your

supply chain?

2. Setup

a. What are the KPIs you want to monitor from running a plan?b. How often do you run your MRP and MPS?c. Do you prioritize your different demands so that the same can be considered

during optimized planning?d. Do you consider your current WIP jobs, reservations, purchase requisitions?

When you run your plan?e. Do you load your MPS from forecasts or manually populate your MPS?f. Do you use the concept of demand/planning time fence to reduce system

nervousness?g. Do you validate your capacity requirements against your MPS?h. Do you also plan for safety stock when you plan?i. Do you plan for your critical resources at MPS level?j. Do you plan taking into account anticipated bill of material changes down the

line?k. Do you consider Order Modifiers when you doing you’re planning?l. Do you use some kind of Kanban planning for some of your items?m. For different items do have different planners?n. What are the different planning exceptions which need to be considered by

your planning engine?o. How long is your planning horizon for MPS, MRP?

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p. Do your planned order releases include purchase requirements? And discrete job releases as recommendations?

q. Is there also a need to generate Distribution plans?r. Do you have legacy systems/flat files/other systems where you capture Master

Schedule related info?s. Do you have many forecasts, master schedules, or plans that you regularly

consolidate into one master schedule?

3. Process

a. At what level do you forecast? Item/Org, Item/Org/customer or Item/Org/Customer address?

b. What is the manufacturing strategy you follow? MTS, ATO, ETO?c. What are the kinds of manufacturing methods you have? Discrete, repetitive,

flow etc.d. Do you need to plan with finite capacity constraints?e. Do you need to plan with finite material constraints?f. Do you need to plan with optimizations that meet company objectives? What

objectives? (Turns, Profit, Utilization?)g. How often do you review capacity requirements? (Hourly, Daily, Weekly,

Quarterly etc.)h. What types of reports do you use to manage this aspect of your business?

May we have samples?

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