Planning Optimization: Procurement Planning in Dynamics 365 – Part 3

How many times does toilet paper need to be approved before the purchase order is placed? What about tooling for an order that needs to run next week? Wouldn’t it be great to skip a second workflow for these items? Master planning can generate planned orders for approved purchase requisitions avoiding the need for a manually created purchase order that would potentially need to be approved once again through workflow.

There are a couple steps to complete in order for master planning to include requisitions:

1. Enable the feature for each master plan that should include requisitions.

Master planning > Setup > Plans > Master plans

2. Set the approved requisition time fence. This can be set at the Coverage Group and Master Plan level.

a. Each Coverage Group where a purchase requisition will be considered needs a time fence value.

Master planning > Setup > Coverage > Coverage groups

b. When the approved requisition time fence is set at the Master Plan, the Coverage group value is overridden.

Master planning > Setup > Plans > Master plans

No matter how the coverage code is setup, purchase requisitions are covered by independent planned orders. This establishes clear traceability between the supply order and purchase requisition. Once the planned order is firmed and pegged to the purchase requisition, the planning engine will keep pegging to the purchase requisition. If the supply has been remarked to another demand, the system will generate a new planned order and peg it to the purchase requisition.

Real-life scenario: A commonly used bolt is set up so that it has a Coverage code value of Period and a period length of seven days. It has the following inventory, sales order, and requisition statuses:

• Current inventory on-hand quantity = 0.
• A sales order was created yesterday for five bolts. It has an expected ship date of today plus one day.
• A purchase requisition for three of the same bolts exists to repair a machine in the shop. It has a requested date of today plus three days.

The buyer has been notified of the purchase requisition to repair the machine that needs to be in working condition for a hot sales order next week. Master planning is initiated for the items on the purchase requisition, and two planned orders are created for the commonly used bolt: one for three pieces to replenish the purchase requisition and one for five pieces to replenish sales order demand. The buyer can firm the planned purchase orders for the commonly used bolt without going through workflow again, instead of creating a manual purchase order (that could potentially be used for new demand) then waiting for another approval via workflow.

Please note: Approved requisitions time fences are not yet supported for Planning Optimization. Until they are supported, all values that you enter in the Approved requisitions time fence (days) field will be ignored. The Planning Optimization service is in the process of being built from the ground up. There will be new features to turn on and use as they become available. Look for Microsoft update in your business’ LCS. Ellipse Solutions would be happy to partner with your company to evaluate the business’ Planning Optimization fit analysis.

Check out Parts 1 & 2 of the Planning Optimization blog series here:

Planning Optimization: The Future of Master Planning in Dynamics 365 – Part 1

Planning Optimization: Production Planning in Dynamics 365 – Part 2