| # Group planning process To generate the plan, ERP Enterprise does the following: Step 1. Load the activities into group planning based on planning attributes The group planning loads the selected activities into groups. Service activities are grouped into activity sets and groups, based on the planning attributes. Activity sets are always part of a group. Groups are planned parallel in time. Activity sets within a group are planned sequential in time. Group sequences with Group Method Parallel are used to generate groups. Group sequences with Group Method Sequential are used to generate activity sets within one group. Note: If the activity set is frozen, ERP Enterprise does not allow you to add orders to an existing activity, but generates new ones. Orders can be added to an activity set, manually. ERP Enterprise allows you to add new service orders to an existing plan manually, even if the activity set is frozen. Step 2. Sort the activities Sorts the activities in groups and activity set. By default, sorting is based on the latest finish time. Each activity set contains one order with an earliest latest finish time, that is also the earliest time the activity set can start. This earliest start time of the activity set is used for sorting. Step 3. Plan forward against the calendar ERP Enterprise plans the sorted activities taking the time windows into account. Planning is based on the Plan Forward parameter in the Generate Plan (tsspc3200m000) session. Note: Optionally, planning can also be based on route. You can use the Plan Method parameter in the Service Planning Parameters (tsspc0100m000) session. Step 4. Modify the plan manually ERP Enterprise allows you to modify the plan at two levels: At group level: Moving activity sets from one group to another Within a group: By changing the sequence of the activity sets By rescheduling from specific activity set from user determined start/end time -By splitting the activity sets By adding (rush) orders to the activity set By changing the sequence of the orders in a group When the workload within a group is satisfactory , for example, for a day, the user can merge all activity sets in one group together, which leads to a single group-activity set combination that contains many service orders. These service orders can be again sequenced further before you freeze the plan. Note Merging of activity sets results in (re)sorting and (re)planning Step 5. Assign resources Engineers can be assigned to activity in the following two ways : Manually Automatically You can define up to 20 different skills for an activity. The required “activity” skills must be met by the “to be assigned” employee between the planned start and planned finish time of the activity. The Group planning module enables you to create group of activities or buckets of work to be executed, that can be assigned to an employee/resource. ERP Enterprise allows you to assign the resources at the following levels: Assigning at group level (characteristic based): Groups are created for activities with the same characteristics or attributes. Example, all the washers, dishwashers and air conditioners are classified in 3 groups. Washers: Marc, John and Hank; Dishwasher: Peter, Dave; Airco: Marco ERP Enterprise assigns the resource on a match between the characteristics of the group and the characteristics of the employee. In case multiple resources match, ERP Enterprise displays the list of employees and the planner can manually select one of the engineers. If one engineer matches, ERP Enterprise assigns the resource. Alternately, resources can be assigned based on priority rule. For more information, refer to Priority Rule. Assigning at activity set level. At activity set level, the resource is the resource of the group level. Individual activity sets cannot be assigned to employees. When an activity set has to be assigned to another employee, the activity set can be moved to another group that is assigned to another resource. Alternately, the assignment can be changed on the service order. Note ERP Enterprise also allows you to generate a default assignment. You can assign an engineer to a service order activity directly, based on the service type. However, the assignment generated by group planning takes precedence over this default assignment. Step 6. Recalculate planned start and finish time ERP Enterprise calculates the new start and finish times. When the new planned start and finish times are known, including travel durations, the slack or shortage of time can be displayed to the user (planner) for every group assigned to a resource. Step 7. Release group planning The information of the group planning activities is copied to the corresponding service order activities, work order activities and planned activities using update activities from Group Planning session. For service orders, the updated travel date/time fields are also copied. Use the Release Plan (tsspc3240m000) session to release the group plan. Note ERP Enterprise allows you to delete the groups from group planning when the resources and the planned start and finish time, are updated. Related topics Priority Rule Check Resource Availability Resource allocation for group planning Group planning data set-up Territory planning process Route-based planning process |