One of the Consultants, Rizwan at #Teampaapri wrote an article on the new Supply Planning Feature used in NetSuite. He went through step by step starting from setting up the supply planning engine to creating purchase order, sales order and Work Orders. I thought it would be a great article to share with Paapri followers as we do NetSuite ERP implementation and maintenance:
Supply Planning
All the steps are done via Administrator role.
What is Supply Planning?
NetSuite Supply Planning helps supply planners determine how to best establish criteria to fulfill demand plan requirements. Supply planning uses sales order details to generate dependent demand for work order components. The objective is to balance supply and demand to achieve your organization’s financial and service objectives.
fSupply plans generate a recommended schedule for purchasing or manufacturing items for supply. A supply plan lists the recommended purchase orders and work orders that can increase item supply based on lead times and expected demand. Planners can create multiple supply plans which can vary depending on the planner’s criteria, such as planning horizon, planning scope, and planning rules.
Supply Planning includes processes and steps that enable supply planners to balance supply and demand to achieve an organization’s financial and service objectives. The following diagram represents the NetSuite Supply Planning process:
Prerequisites for Supply Planning
Navigate to Setup -> Company -> Setup Tasks -> Enable Features.
1. Under the Items and Inventory subtab, the following features must be activated.
· Multi-Location Inventory – for the assembly item stock levels needed for the supply plan
· Assembly Items – to enable planning for manufactured items.
· Advanced Bills of Materials – where component assembly items are stored to ensure that the assembly components are available.
· Work Orders – the order that builds the assembly item must be included in the supply plan.
· Advanced Inventory Management – to include reorder point and safety stock levels in the supply planning run.
· Material Requirements Planning – to activate the supply planning feature.
· Demand Planning – to are use demand plans (forecasts) with supply planning.
· Advanced Item Location Configuration – This feature has not been mentioned in the SuiteAnswers. This has to be activated too.
Navigate to Setup -> Accounting -> Preferences -> Accounting Preferences.
Under the Order Management subtab, check the Allow Purchase of Assembly Items box.
Under the Approval Routing subtab, check the Purchase Orders box.
Navigate to Setup -> Accounting -> Preferences -> Inventory Management Preferences.
Check the Use lead Time and Safety Stock per Location box.
Setting Up an Item for Supply Plan
While setting up the item, under the Purchasing/Inventory subtab, select the Replenishment Method as Material Requirements Planning (MRP).
Under the Purchasing/Inventory (subtab) -> Location (sublist), edit the location for which you want to configure Planning details.
Under the Planning subtab, enter the Safety Stock Level, Purchase Lead Time. etc.
Inputs to the MRP
There are two inputs the MRP:
1. Supply Plan Definition – Supply Plan Definition enables planners to establish the criteria to be used for supply planning. The plan definition provides the information that drives the supply planning process, such as planning horizon and planning scope. For example: you can run supply planning at multiple facilities at one time. A supply plan definition provides a permanent holding place for your planning criteria and planning results.
2. Planning Repository – The Planning Repository stores related planning information that enables you to control how often NetSuite updates planning inputs. The repository refresh process accumulates the most up-to-date data from NetSuite to use for supply planning. The planning process calculates projected available quantity, generates supply orders, and action and exception messages.
Creating Planning Item Category
Navigate to Lists -> Supply Planning -> Planning Item Category -> New.
Give a name to Planning Item Category. User can also give a Description for the planning item category.
1. Save the record.
Open the Item Record, under Purchasing/Inventory subtab, for Planning Item Category, select the Item Category created in the above step from the dropdown list.
Note: For selecting a Planning Item Category the Replenishment Method has to be Material Requirements Planning or Master Production Scheduling.
Creating Planning Item Group
Navigate to Lists -> Supply Planning -> Planning Item Groups -> New.
Give a name to Planning Item Category. User can also give a Description for the planning item category.
Under the Planning Items subtab, for item type either select Planning Item Category or Item.
Select the Item Category created before.
Save the record.
Creating Planning Item Rule
Navigate to Lists -> Supply Planning -> Planning Item Groups -> New.
Give a name to Planning Item Category. User can also give a Description for the planning item category.
Under the Planning Items subtab, for item type either select Planning Item Category or Item.
Select an Item Category.
Select the Location for which you want Supply Planning.
Select a Source Location.
Enter the Lead Time in days.
Save the record.
Creating Supply Plan Definition
Navigate to Transactions -> Supply Planning -> Supply Plan Definitions -> New.
Enter a name for the Supply Plan Definition. Select the Planning Rule Group and Planning Item Group.
Select the location for which you want to create the supply plan definition.
Select their demand source type as either Sales Order or Demand Plans or Sales Order and Demand Plans.
Check the Consume Forecast checkbox. Save the record
Refreshing Planning Repository
Navigate to Transactions -> Supply Planning -> Refresh Planning Repository.
Select Complete Refresh to purge data from the repository and reload all item setup data and transactions for the supply plan. Select Net Change to reload data that has changed since the last repository refresh to present the latest supply planning data. Select a Refresh Option: Item Setup or Item Setup and Transactions.
If the user selects Net Change Refresh, the Refresh Options get enabled.
Select Item Setup or Item Setup and Transactions and select the Date Range.
Click on Refresh Data button.
The user can optionally select a Supply Plan Definition to launch it directly after the Repository has been successfully refreshed.
The Planning Repository Event Log page opens up. Here the user can see the status of the refresh and if there were any errors or not.
Launching Supply Planning Workbench from Supply Plan Definition
Navigate to Transactions -> Supply Planning -> Supply Plan Definitions
Click on the Launch button.
After this submission status becomes Complete for the process type Material Requirements Planning, click on View Results under Planning Workbench column.
Supply Planning Workbench
After clicking on the View Results hyperlink, the Supply Planning Workbench opens up.
The name of the Supply Plan Definition and other details is displayed on the top section.
Item Filters on the left section.
1. There are four different types of messages/outputs of the Supply Planning Workbench.
o Action – System’s recommendation for the supply plan.
o Exception – Challenges on the supply plan. Reasons behind the Late Demand quantity.
o Supply – Information regarding the Supply Orders included in the Supply Plan.
Demand – List of Demand Orders and Sources that needed to be fulfilled by the Supply Orders on the Supply Plan.
Below the Top section there are filters available to filter the messages.
User needs to perform the Actions for all items. Click on the number just below the Action column head. It is the summation of all the actions for all items.
User can also open the actions for individual items.
User can perform all the Actions one by one or all at once by checking the checkbox at the column head and clicking on Perform Selected Actions button.
After clicking on the Perform Selected Actions button, user will get a prompt from NetSuite. User needs to click on OK.
Click on the Refresh Data icon.
User can see the exceptions under the Exceptions subtab.
User can see the Supply Orders under the Supply subtab. Complete them if required by checking the checkboxes and clicking on the Release Selected Order or Create Planned Orders accordingly.
User can view the Demand Orders under the Demand subtab.
Converting Planned Purchase Orders to Purchase Orders
Navigate to Transactions->Supply Planning->Order Items.
Under the Planned Orders subtab, the Released Planned Purchase Order will be listed. Select the ones to be converted to Purchase Orders.
Scroll to the right and review other details. Submit the record.
A PO gets created.
After receiving this PO, user needs to convert the Planned Transfer Order into Transfer Order.
Converting Planned Transfer Order to Transfer Order
Navigate to Transactions->Supply Planning->Replenish Location By Transfer Order.
Under Planning subtab, select the Planned Transfer Orders to be converted.
Review other details and submit the record.
A Transfer Order gets created.
Converting Planned Work Orders to Work Orders
Navigate to Transactions->Supply Planning->Mass Create Work Orders.
Under Planned Orders subtab, select the Planned Work Orders to be converted.
Review other details and Submit.
On the Process Status page, click on the Submission Status hyperlink to view the created work orders.
The details of the Work Orders gets listed.
Hope this helps. I also added a NetSuite Demonstration on Supply Planning WorkBench
