Simple Planning helps maximise resource use. You can maximise cash flow, profit, and ROI.
SAP and Alkyone built Simple Planning functionality into SAP ERP products.
Simple Planning Benefits
- Near-perfect due dates. Close to 100% reliability.
- Reduce lead time by 50%
- WIP and inventory decline by 50%.
- Increase capacity without adding resources.
- Get more sales (>10%) & less price pressure.
- Fixed costs do not increase.
- Profit and profitability can double and more.
Simple Planning Modules
Buy or licence Simple Planning modules to grow into the complete solution. Limit your commitment until you are comfortable to move on.
What do all the modules do?
1. Simple Planning Lite – Production Scheduling OR Materials Planning:
Production Scheduling has visibility of all resources, workstations, pending orders, and in-process production orders. It makes impending delays visible and helps with necessary priority updates. It helps management achieve a smooth production flow.
OR start with …
Materials Planning has visibility of requirements at all bills of material (BOM) levels. It optimises inventory for item availability and quantity making quantities dynamic. It respects minimal order quantities (MOQ) and updates requirements and replenishment times daily. It eliminates shortages and surpluses.
Use these to evaluate the basics of Simple Planning.
2. Simple Planning Professional:
It combines the first two modules with the Sales Cockpit and Order Monitor. The business gets a comprehensive view of its operation.
The scheduling component identifies and monitors the operational constraints’ performance. It aligns planning and scheduling with constraint capabilities. It minimises work-in-process to the point of optimal flow.
Materials planning identifies issues like time-critical items and critical stock status. It reviews upcoming frame contract issues and prevents shortages and surpluses.
The Sales Cockpit monitors orders to ensure the highest possible due date reliability. It identifies impending due date misses and reports conflicts between orders. It helps manage frame contracts by identifying the under and overfilled ones. It helps coordinate with clients when due dates and volumes change.
It deals with urgent orders to avoid delays to other orders. Simple Planning minimises overloads and shop-floor stress.
The software supports dual sourcing (or multi-sourcing). It helps you divide demand between selected suppliers. The system helps optimise set-up times within lead time and availability targets.
3. The Expert Modules:
The software provides an important assist. The Key is choosing the right process for your company. The right process is to identify your constraint; decide how to exploit it to maximise your bottom line; getting everyone else to subordinate to the decision how to exploit. Once the constraint is completely exploited then is the time to expand its capacity. (Do this soon enough to NOT lose any sales through an inability to supply.
Cutting your lead time is one key step to exploit the constraint better eg subordinate to the exploit decision.
Levers for Profit and ROI 