Oracle MPS, or Master Production Scheduling, is designed to streamline production scheduling and inventory management by integrating demand forecasts with production plans. This article covers how Oracle MPS boosts supply chain performance, improves decision-making, and enhances overall inventory accuracy.
Key Takeaways
- Oracle MPS enhances supply chain planning by integrating advanced analytics, machine learning, and stakeholder inputs to automate decision-making and improve efficiency.
- Master Production Schedule (MPS) bridges high-level planning with daily manufacturing activities, ensuring realistic production schedules that align with demand and minimize bottlenecks.
- Key features of Oracle MPS include seamless integration with Oracle Inventory for accurate requirements planning, support for multi-organization MPS, and flexible handling of both discrete and repetitive production items.
Critical Oracle MPS Strategies for Improved Efficiency
Oracle’s supply chain command center is designed to:
- Boost the quality and speed of decision-making within your supply chain
- Integrate demand insights, supply constraints, and stakeholder inputs
- Leverage built-in machine learning to enhance profitability and customer service
- Increase productivity through advanced analytics
- Provide guided problem-resolution recommendations
- Facilitate machine learning predictions to automate decision-making
- Ensure the effective utilization of capacity
One of the standout features of Oracle MPS is its integration with Oracle Inventory. This allows organizations to ensure accurate requirements planning by considering item attributes like shrinkage rate, component yield, and safety stock.
By incorporating these variables, Oracle MPS allows you to create flexible material requirement plans that align with your organizational goals through the material requirements planning process. Oracle’s advanced supply chain planning features offer the following benefits for supply chain planning users:
- Evaluates demand changes by analyzing the effects of seasonality, promotions, and product attributes
- Enables robust demand plans synchronized with sales and operations planning (S&OP) and supply plans
- Creates a well-coordinated supply chain that responds dynamically to market changes and customer demands
Understanding Master Production Schedule (MPS)
At the heart of efficient supply chain planning lies the Master Production Schedule (MPS). The MPS defines the anticipated build schedule for critical items, linking the aggregate production plan to specific manufacturing items, dates, and quantities. This detailed production schedule is a statement of what the company expects to produce based on its tactical plan.
The master production scheduling process is crucial for the following:
- Aligning production plans with manufacturing capabilities
- Defining the anticipated build schedule
- Accounting for all critical items to prevent bottlenecks
- Guaranteeing a smooth production flow
- Linking the master schedule and the aggregate production plan to maintain production efficiency and meet customer demands.
In essence, the master production schedule defines the overall strategy for achieving critical production goals and bridges high-level planning and day-to-day manufacturing activities. It considers the master demand schedule, consolidating all sources of demand, including sales orders, forecasts, and spares demand. As a result, it offers a comprehensive view of the production schedule, facilitating efficient management of supply chain operations.
The MPS plays a significant role in effective demand management scheduling production by:
- Scheduling production based on anticipated demand and supply constraints
- Ensuring production schedules are realistic and achievable, minimizing the risk of overproduction or stockouts
- Enabling businesses to stay ahead of demand fluctuations and sustain optimal inventory levels
- Optimizing production processes to meet customer demand
Key Features of Oracle MPS
Oracle MPS boasts several key features that make it a powerful tool for efficient supply chain planning. One of the most notable features is its seamless integration with Oracle Inventory. This integration ensures accurate requirements planning by considering item attributes such as shrinkage rate, component yield, and safety stock. Incorporating these factors, Oracle MPS delivers a comprehensive view of inventory requirements, which allows for precise planning and execution.
Another significant feature of Oracle MPS is its support for multi-organization MPS. This capability allows businesses to create distribution requirements plans (DRP) from a master production schedule, facilitating efficient inter-organizational demand management. Additionally, Oracle MPS can handle both discrete and repetitive items, offering specific schedule dates for discrete items and rate-based schedules for repetitive items. This flexibility ensures businesses can effectively manage various production scenarios within the same platform.
Setting Up an Effective Master Production Schedule
Setting up an effective Master Production Schedule (MPS) involves several critical steps. The first step is defining a schedule name. Start by navigating to the Master Demand Schedules or Master Production Schedules window and entering a name and description for the schedule. Providing a clear and descriptive name is vital for easy identification and management of the schedule.
After defining the schedule name, the next step involves setting relief options. This ensures the schedule is properly configured for the necessary relief settings. Checking the ‘Relieve’ option ensures all sales order shipments or production activities update the appropriate schedule entries. This procedure, referred to as shipment and production relief, is key to maintaining accurate schedules and avoiding demand duplication.
The MPS window offers several options to customize schedule settings, using the ‘Feedback’ option to:
- Monitor the number of planned orders that have been implemented as discrete jobs, purchase orders, or requisitions
- Track the progress of critical planning processes
- Make any plan adjustments as needed
This feedback mechanism is essential for tracking the progress of planned orders and making necessary adjustments to the anticipated shipment schedule during the planning process.
Finally, manually defining schedule entries is critical in setting up an effective MPS. By adding items to schedule names and specifying detailed date and quantity information for each item, planners can create a detailed production schedule that aligns with demand forecasts and capacity constraints.
Loading and Managing Master Schedules
Loading and managing master schedules is a vital aspect of supply chain planning. Oracle MPS allows users to load master schedules from multiple internal sources, such as forecasts, sales orders, and other master schedules. This capability ensures all sources of demand are consolidated into a single, comprehensive view.
The Master Demand Schedule (MDS) plays a crucial role in this process by:
- Consolidating all sources of demand
- Providing an overview of the demand schedules
- Allowing for modifications before creating a detailed production schedule
- Guaranteeing production schedules accurately mirror current demand and supply conditions
Inter-organizational demand management is another key feature of Oracle MPS. Users can manage inter-organizational demand from an MDS or MPS, enabling the development of distribution requirements plans (DRP) and ensuring efficient planning and coordination of distribution activities.
Additionally, Oracle MPS can import master schedule information from other systems through the Open Master Schedule Interface. This feature ensures that external schedules can be validated and integrated into the Oracle MRP system, providing a unified and accurate view of the master schedule.
Forecasting and Demand Management
Effective forecasting and demand management are critical for maintaining a balanced supply chain. Oracle Inventory offers various forecasting methods, including statistical and focus forecasting. Statistical forecasting methods, such as exponential smoothing, trend-enhanced, and season-enhanced forecasting, allow businesses to predict future demand based on historical data.
Exponential smoothing forecasts weigh more recent data more heavily, providing a more accurate prediction of future demand. Season-enhanced forecasting adjusts for seasonal variations using seasonality indices, while trend-enhanced forecasting combines adjustments for both trend and seasonality. These methods ensure forecasts are tailored to each company’s unique demand patterns.
Focus forecasting in Oracle Inventory selects the most accurate forecasting model based on past periods. This method is particularly useful for one-period forecasts, ensuring the most reliable model is used for predicting demand. By leveraging these advanced forecasting methods, businesses can improve their demand management and maintain optimal inventory levels.
Next-generation demand management in Oracle includes machine learning for better forecast accuracy and tracking forecast errors. Machine learning algorithms analyze historical demand data and identify patterns that traditional forecasting methods might miss. This results in more accurate forecasts and a better understanding of critical demand fluctuations.
Relief Processes in Oracle MPS
Relief processes in Oracle MPS are critical for maintaining accurate schedules and preventing demand duplication. The ‘MRP: Consume MPS’ profile option can enable or disable production relief in Oracle MPS, ensuring planned supply is replaced with actual supply when a work order or purchase requisition is created.
Shipment relief, or MDS relief, reduces anticipated demand when a product is shipped to fulfill a sales order. This process ensures the master demand schedule is updated to reflect actual shipments, preventing overproduction and maintaining accurate inventory levels. If a master demand schedule hasn’t been reloaded after the AutoCreate Configuration process, shipment relief explodes the configuration bill and relieves master demand schedules for each model and option class.
The production relief process includes the following steps:
- Relieves forecast items based on the sales order line schedule date.
- Decrements the forecast entry by the sales order quantity when an exact date match is found.
- Ensures the MPS accurately reflects the current production status.
- Replaces planned supply with actual supply as soon as discrete jobs, purchase orders, or requisitions are created.
Rough Cut Capacity Planning (RCCP)
Rough Cut Capacity Planning (RCCP) is a vital tool for validating master schedules and ensuring sufficient capacity is available to meet production requirements. RCCP assists businesses in identifying conflicts between desirable and attainable schedules by verifying the availability of critical resources.
RCCP focuses on monitoring long-term trends in required and available capacity, typically for critical resources. This approach ensures realistic and achievable master schedules, preventing overloading of production lines and ensuring smooth operations. Capacity utilization in RCCP can be calculated by resource or production line, helping to balance required and available capacity.
Additionally, RCCP can utilize bills of resources, allowing adjustments to simulate changes in available capacity and different manufacturing methods. This flexibility enables businesses to adapt to changing conditions and optimize their production schedules accordingly.
Handling Sales Orders and Planned Orders
Handling sales orders and planned orders efficiently is crucial for maintaining a balanced supply chain. Oracle MPS enables users to load sales orders into a Master Demand Schedule (MDS), carrying the specified unit number to the schedule entry. This procedure guarantees the accurate reflection of sales order demand in the production schedule.
When users need to incorporate a specific demand class into their master schedule, they can load a subset of sales orders. This capability allows businesses to prioritize certain orders based on demand class, promptly addressing critical orders. The MDS considers various demand types, including:
- Item forecasts
- Spares demand
- Sales orders
- Internal requisitions
Sales orders can be tracked to:
- See which orders relieved the MDS or specific member items
- Provide visibility into the status of sales orders
- Ensure that the master schedule is updated accordingly.
As time progresses, users can add orders to the MPS plan without impacting the current plan. This provides flexibility for making adjustments and additions, which allows businesses to adapt to changing demand conditions and maintain an accurate production schedule.
Time Fence Control
Time fence control is a crucial aspect of supply chain planning that helps minimize disruptions to shop floor and supplier schedules. Time fences and boundaries between different periods in the planning horizon play a pivotal role in maintaining stable production schedules and avoiding costly interruptions.
The three types of time fences used by Oracle Master Scheduling/MRP and Supply Chain Planning are planning time fence, demand time fence, and release time fence. These time fences help in effectively scheduling and planning supply chain activities and can be defined based on different lead times or user-defined values. For example, the planning time fence restricts changes to the master schedule within a certain period, ensuring production activities proceed without unexpected alterations.
Incorporating demand time fence controls helps limit the influence of short-term demand fluctuations on the production schedule. By setting appropriate time fences, companies can:
- Improve stability and confidence for their material plan
- Ensure only significant changes are considered
- Maintain a stable and predictable production environment
Best Practices for Oracle MPS Users
To maximize the benefits of Oracle MPS, it is essential to follow best practices that streamline supply chain operations and ensure accurate priorities. One key strategy involves maintaining accurate and credible priorities to ensure prompt addressing of the most critical tasks and orders. This helps avoid production delays and ensures customer demands are met on time.
Another crucial practice is regularly reviewing and adjusting schedule entry quantities to reflect actual demand and capacity constraints. By keeping the master data, including bills of material and lead times, up to date, planners can ensure the accuracy of their production schedules. This proactive approach helps prevent stockouts and production delays, maintaining a smooth supply chain operation.
Using safety stock to buffer against forecast inaccuracies and sudden changes in demand is also advisable, providing a cushion to absorb unexpected demand spikes and ensuring production continues uninterrupted. Additionally, regular communication with stakeholders ensures alignment and addresses any discrepancies in the production plan. This collaborative approach helps maintain a cohesive and efficient supply chain.
Finally, leveraging real-time data synchronization and planning tools can minimize communication lag in supply chain decisions. By using these tools, businesses can ensure that all stakeholders can access the latest information, enabling faster and more accurate decision-making.
Common Challenges and Solutions
Despite its many advantages, Oracle MPS users often face common challenges, such as plan infeasibility and local optimization conflicts. Plan infeasibility arises due to the complex interdependencies within the supply chain. To address this issue, it is crucial to thoroughly evaluate the entire supply chain to ensure compatibility and feasibility of the plans.
Local optimization conflicts occur when actions taken to optimize one part of the supply chain negatively impact another part. This challenge can be mitigated using a single, integrated plan that aligns local actions with global objectives. Businesses can achieve a more harmonious and efficient operation by ensuring that all parts of the supply chain work towards common goals.
Maintaining credible priorities and allocating critical resources effectively can also help overcome these challenges. Focusing on the overall supply chain instead of isolated parts enables businesses to craft more robust and feasible plans that drive success.
How Can We Help?
From outlining plans for an effective Oracle app implementation to helping your teams optimize master scheduling operations, improving demand forecasting accuracy, and navigating complex integrations between Oracle and non-Oracle systems, Surety Systems is here to help.
Our senior-level Oracle consultants have the knowledge, skills, and experience to handle your most critical project needs and ensure your internal teams are prepared for long-term success.
Contact Us
For more information about our Oracle consulting services or to get started on a project with our team of expert consultants, contact us today.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the role of the Master Production Schedule (MPS) in supply chain planning?
The Master Production Schedule (MPS) plays a crucial role in supply chain planning by defining the build schedule for critical items and aligning production plans with manufacturing capabilities. This ensures a smooth production flow and links the aggregate production plan to specific manufacturing items, dates, and quantities.
How does Oracle MPS integrate with Oracle Inventory?
Oracle MPS integrates with Oracle Inventory by considering item attributes like shrinkage rate and safety stock. It can create flexible material requirement plans aligned with organizational goals, ensuring accurate requirements planning.
What are the benefits of using machine learning in Oracle's supply chain planning?
Using machine learning in Oracle’s supply chain planning can improve decision-making by predicting future demand, optimizing supply chain decisions, and increasing productivity through advanced analytics and guided problem resolution.
How can businesses manage inter-organizational demand using Oracle MPS?
Businesses can manage inter-organizational demand using Oracle MPS by creating distribution requirements plans from an MPS. This facilitates efficient coordination between organizational units to balance demand and supply across the supply chain.
What is Rough Cut Capacity Planning (RCCP), and how does it benefit supply chain planning?
Rough Cut Capacity Planning (RCCP) benefits supply chain planning by validating master schedules, ensuring adequate resources, and identifying and resolving conflicts between desirable and attainable schedules. This helps to make master schedules realistic and achievable.
