Strategic capacity planning made easy
Balancing long-term capacity and demand is essential for robust supply chain operations. The PPC Rough-Cut Dispatcher enables strategic and medium-term planning across production horizons by providing a centralised view of capacity requirements and constraints. Fully embedded in SAP without the need for interfaces, it delivers real-time insights and powerful planning tools that help synchronise operations with business objectives.
Whether you're shaping annual production strategies or preparing detailed weekly plans, the PPC Rough-Cut Dispatcher forms the foundation for feasible, realistic planning across the supply chain.
Business Impact
By integrating the PPC Rough-Cut Dispatcher into your planning process, your organisation benefits from:
- Improved long- and mid-term planning accuracy
- Greater visibility of plant capacity and order feasibility
- Faster response to supply and demand variability
- Optimised resource allocation with leaner, smoother plans
- Full alignment with SAP and msg's integrated SCM approach
Core Capabilities
Rough-cut planning aligns production demands with available capacity across configurable time periods — from years to shifts. Using both automated heuristics and manual control (via drag and drop), planners can level capacity in “buckets” such as weeks or days while respecting defined constraints and resource availability.
The module provides an at-a-glance view of resource utilisation and availability at the plant level, helping planners respond swiftly to changing demand scenarios. It also supports feasibility checks on customer enquiries at multiple planning resolutions — yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, or per shift.
Dynamic order networks are evaluated across several production levels using pegging logic. This provides transparency into how orders and components interact, supporting both forward- and backward-looking planning.
Planning Features and Flexibility
Depending on planning goals, the granularity can be adjusted:
- Strategic Planning: Focused on annual or quarterly horizons, to support long-term raw material procurement, capacity planning, and machine allocation.
- Operative Planning: Prepared at weekly or daily levels, supporting short-term scheduling and handover to production controllers or shop floor staff.
The user interface is designed to enhance decision-making. Key data is displayed clearly and can be acted upon quickly — whether through drag-and-drop manipulation, predefined planning heuristics, or customised SAP module extensions. The result: fewer clicks, faster insight, and more confident planning decisions.
The module accounts for both classic ERP capacity limits (e.g. work centre categories) and extended constraints such as:
- Supplier delivery limits
- Warehouse or buffer capacities
- Minimum stock levels
- Precedence relationships and operation offsets
This ensures the resulting plan is both realistic and aligned with production realities.
Advanced Planning Logic
A built-in smoothing function balances workloads over time to prevent peaks and valleys in resource usage. This improves efficiency and reduces the risk of overloads or underutilisation.
Planners can visualise workloads and shift orders directly on a graphical timeline. Orders can be moved with drag-and-drop ease, providing a clear, intuitive overview of capacity and order alignment.
The PPC Rough-Cut Dispatcher supports a wide range of planning strategies:
- Finite and infinite capacity planning
- Automatic and manual dispatching
- Planning heuristics (e.g. ASAP, JIT)
- Multi-level simultaneous planning
- Prioritised planning by demand type (e.g. make-to-stock, make-to-order)
- Personnel and tool resource planning
- Chief orders that cannot be moved
- Cross-plant planning
- What-if analysis with simulated scenarios
Integration with the PPC Suite
The Rough-Cut Dispatcher forms a seamless link between strategic outlooks and short-term scheduling, preparing the ground for detailed sequencing and production execution. It integrates effortlessly with other PPC modules, enabling:
- Block Planning: Group orders into blocks to optimise changeovers and resource usage
- Capacity Reservation: Reserve capacity for key customers or high-priority demand
- Campaign Planning: Group orders by shared characteristics for efficient execution
- Planning Constraints: Add specialised business rules to enforce production logic
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