The work plan in SAP Business One

Manufacturing companies face the challenge of accurately determining material and resource requirements. The work plan in SAP Business One serves as the central control instrument for this purpose. It links the production and material requirements planning (MRP) modules and ensures that production processes run efficiently. Medium-sized businesses benefit from a structured modeling of their production processes that takes into account both temporal and resource-related aspects.

The list of items as the foundation of the work plan

The Bill of Materials (BoM) serves as a fundamental document of the work plan. It is not just a simple list of components; rather, it integrates various elements that are relevant to the entire manufacturing process.

Production item list versus sales item list

SAP Business One distinguishes between different item lists. The production item list represents the primary model for the work plan. It represents a finished product as a parent component, which consists of various component parts. During the production process, the finished product is therefore created from the individual components. In contrast, the sales item list (Sales BoM) corresponds more closely to a sales set. Although it is also defined in the item list, it serves a different purpose.

The four elements of the program: articles, resources, text, and route sections

The individual lines in the bill of materials determine which elements are needed in the production process. article they form the physical raw materials and components required for the finished product. resources include machinery, working hours and other capacities. In addition, Text lines contain detailed specifications and work instructions that are needed during production. These prove useful for run sheets or mobile capture terminals. Finally, they define Route sections the work steps that structure the sequential sequence of production.

Users can access the link plan via the context menu in the article master data. This provides a tree structure of the connections between all the articles, resources, and intermediate products included in the work plan.

Route sections: Processual organization of production

Route sections divide the entire production process into phases or work steps. This allows companies to structure the functions and processing operations and work them out systematically.

Structure order and dependencies

Within the bill of materials, route segments can be defined. This offers the advantage of organizing machining operations into individual phases. Users can change the sequence of the route segments, which shifts the order of the work steps. This allows the production process to adapt flexibly to different requirements.

Run-time control via waiting days

The logical control of the time sequence is carried out through waiting days. These are a manually entered value that represents the waiting times between the route segments. For example, waiting days take into account the time required for the drying or curing of a product. Consequently, the waiting days are added to the throughput times of the resources. Consequently, they influence the calculation of the start date in the production order and in the material requirements planning.

Resource planning and capacity management

Resources such as machines (Machine Type), labor (Labor Type), or other resources (Other Type) are master data that are used in the work plan. Unlike items, resources are managed not by quantities but by capacity.

Resource master data and cost calculation

For each resource, up to ten different cost components can be recorded in the master data. These together form the total costs of the resource. The costs are included in the goods-in-process (WIP) accounting, provided that the inventory reconciliation is correctly set up. Therefore, SAP Business One enables precise cost tracking during the production process.

Capacity definition and individual flow capacity

The daily capacity of the resource is specified in the planning data of the resource hierarchy. Up to four factors can be used to calculate the estimated capacity. One factor can represent the number of employees or machines and their daily capacity in hours.

An important concept is the single-run capacity (Single Capacity Run). This indicates how many resource units are available for a single production order at maximum. If only one employee or machine can work on a single order at the same time, the single-run capacity is lower than the total capacity of the shift. Thus, the system prevents overloading of individual resources.

Calculation of runtime for precise planning

The runtime of the work plan is calculated based on the resource requirements. The calculation is done by converting the resource unit of measure into a time value. Specifically, the conversion factor between the resource unit and the time unit is defined in the resource hierarchy. The total runtime of a production order is the maximum value of the production time of all the resources included in the order. Consequently, companies can promise realistic delivery dates.

From the work plan to the production order

The production order is the document that brings the defined work plan into effect. It translates the plan into operational implementation.

Scheduling: Plan forward or plan backward

The scheduling of the tasks in the production order is based on the times and capacities defined in the work plan. Two methods are available for assigning resources to this task. The method Start date forward (Start Date Forward) reserves the resource capacities forward from the start date of the order until the required total capacity is reached. Alternatively, the method calculates: End date in reverse (End Date Backward) the start date is set back from the due date of the order. Therefore, the calculation of the start date is iterative and takes into account the required resource capacities as well as availability.

Material and resource output in practice

The extraction of components and the consumption of resources can take place in two ways. In the manual removal (Manual Issue) the consumption is booked in a separate transaction. This allows deviations between the planned and actual quantities to be recorded. The Retrograde withdrawal (Backflush), on the other hand, automatically books the planned quantities as soon as the finished product is fully reported. Companies can thus choose between control and efficiency.

The work plan in SAP Business One integrates all components of production control into a unified system. The linking of item lists, route segments, resource planning, and production orders enables medium-sized companies to precisely control their production processes. By structuring the representation of material and capacity requirements, companies create the foundation for on-time production and reliable cost calculations.