Using Lead Time Shifts

This topic applies to APS.

Lead time for an item accumulates for 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. For example, if an item's fixed lead time is 6 days (and variable lead time=0), and an order is placed for it on Monday, the lead time indicates the order's earliest availability at Sunday. But for your business, Saturdays and Sundays may not be valid days for accumulating lead time.

To represent this concept of business days for lead time calculations, define a scheduling shift named PCAL. The system uses this shift when calculating lead time for all items in your database. APS interprets the lead time for an item as "working time" on the lead time shift. For example, for a purchased item, a lead time amount of working time from the item's due date offsets the time the purchase order must be placed at the vendor.

Although the system will use this special shift for lead-time calculations for all types of items (Purchased, Manufactured, or Transferred), this concept applies in most cases only to purchased items. Manufactured and transferred items are usually planned according to their routing/bill of material. See Defining Lead Time for a discussion of where the system uses lead-time calculations.

NOTES: If the Time Fence Rule for the item is set to "Specific," the system uses a 24 hours x 7 days calendar instead of using the PCAL.

Other system processes (such as the Material Availability Report and the MPS Processor) use the default scheduling shift, Minimum Hours in Work Day, and MDAY Start/MDAY End planning parameters to determine valid manufacturing days.

Creating the PCAL Shift

To create the PCAL shift:

  1. Open the Scheduling Shifts form.
  2. Click the Filter-In-Place button to turn off filter-in-place mode.
  3. Select Actions > New to create a new shift record.
  4. In the Shift ID field, enter PCAL. The lead time shift must have this shift ID.
  5. In the Starting Day, Starting Time, Ending Day, and Ending Time fields, enter the range for each day of this shift (just as you define a normal shift record). See Defining the Work Week for details on defining the days of a shift record. Typically, you will define the days in the lead time shift to run from 00:00 to 24:00.
  6. Select Actions > Save to save the lead time shift.

EXAMPLE: Assume you define the lead time shift to run from 00:00 to 24:00 on Monday through Friday (Saturdays and Sundays are off-shift days). Part 123 has a Fixed Lead Time of 0.0 and a variable lead time of 1 hour. You have an order for part 123 with a quantity of 60, which is placed on August 9 (Friday) and due on August 26 (Monday) at 12:00. To determine the latest time the order can be placed to satisfy the requirement, the system starts at the due date and moves back until it finds 60 hours of working time.

  1. (Due Date) Monday Aug. 26: 12:00-00:00 (12 hours)
  2. Sunday Aug. 25: Off-shift
  3. Saturday Aug. 24: Off-shift
  4. Friday Aug. 23: 24:00-00:00 (24 hours)
  5. Thursday Aug. 22: 24:00-00:00 (24 hours)

The result is that the order would need to be placed by 00:00 (12:00 a.m.) on August 22 to meet the due date. You would see this result in the release date of the purchase order you firm from the planned order.

Related Topics

APS Overview

Defining the Work Week

Defining Lead Time for APS Planning

Scheduling Shifts