Dynamics 365 & Manufacturing Strategies - PART 2 - Make-To-Stock (MTS)

This article is about manufacturing strategies and their Dynamics 365 ERP applications. Knowledge transfer has been planned in 2 posts:

PART 1: Dynamics 365 & Manufacturing Strategies - PART 1 - General Concept
PART 2: Dynamics 365 & Manufacturing Strategies - PART 2 - Make-To-Stock (MTS)

Let's start PART 2

CONTENTS

Introduction
Demand Forecasting
Stocking/Ordering Policies
Master Planning
Some User Experience Enhancements for Planning View

INTRODUCTION

"Demand forecasting - Predicting the future sales" is the key point of make-to-stock strategy. Because the nature of make-to-stock is producing a great many parts which often have a low value.

Followings are Dynamics 365 make-to-stock components:

Let's take a look at all those Dynamics 365 functions.

DEMAND FORECASTING

Demand Forecast Entry
You can import your forecast by using excel or enter manually. Demand forecasting can be by product, by product group, by customer or by customer group.

Demand Forecasting
It's also called Statistical Forecast. Since it is statistical, there must be minimum 6 months of data in order to project from the past.

Demand forecasting consists of the following steps:

1 - Generate statistical baseline forecast

• Specify what the historical horizon is on master plan parameters.
• Specify what transaction types are going to be used on demand forecasting parameters. (Sales order, quotation, production line, transfers, etc.)
• Select what products you are going to include in the forecast. Define item allocation keys in order to do that.
• Run statistical forecast

2 - Review and Adjust baseline forecast
Adjusting Data On ERP: Planner has information about incoming promotions/campaigns or other things and can adjust the forecast accordingly.

Adjusting Data On Excel by Exporting and Importing: If planner works more comfortable in excel then exporting plan itself is also possible.

Planner publishes the adjusted forecast back to the system.

3 - Authorize the forecast. Once you complete the forecast adjustment, authorize the adjusted demand forecast in order to let planning (MRP/Master planning) use the forecast.

• Forecast plan time fence: How much should system consider for forecast? The longer the better.
• BOM explosion time fence: Should system create requirements for dependent BOM items within planning horizon?

• Outcome of last run - You can directly see that from planned orders tile.
• Urgent planned orders need to be firmed.
• Planned orders causing delays to sales and other demand types.
• Easy of access to pegging information - Hover over the planned order and system gives you pegging info as pop-up.
• Regular planned orders form in master planning also has a pegging portion on its factbox.
• Easily make changes to planned orders.