Processing
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Processing Settings govern the buffer calculations, alert parameters, and MRP usage in R+. These settings can be set at a global or location level. The global will be the default for all locations in R+ until you change the settings for that location.
Modifying Global or Local Settings
Settings can be modified for each location by clicking the "Modify Location Settings" button in the upper right corner. Once you select this button, you will see the screen below:
To use the global settings for a location, first make sure the dropdown in the upper right corner is set to the correct location. Then, select the globe icon on the setting you want to match to the global settings. If you want to make a change for a specific location, change the setting to the preferred value and hit "Save".
Change the Global settings by changing the Locations dropdown in the Modify Location Settings screen to the "Global" location.
Buffers and Order Processing
Description
The Round Buffer Values to One setting gives you the choice to round buffer zone calculations to 1. If this setting is set to ON (the green checkmark), all red zone, yellow zone, and green zone calculations that are less than 1 in R+ will round up to 1. If it is set to OFF (the orange X), the calculated values will be used for the buffer zones without rounding to 1.
When the Ignore NB Demand Outside Processing Window setting is turned ON (the green checkmark), all demand records for non-buffered parts outside the processing window will be deleted during imports. When the import has completed, you will get a message indicating the number of records that were not imported. If set to OFF (the orange X), all NB demand will be imported.
Demand Order Window
The Demand Order Window is the number of days extra outside of the processing window for either buffered or non-buffered parts that R+ will look for demand to consider against that part. It is separated by buffered or non-buffered parts because these are both processed differently. You can also set the values for different types of demand orders in R+. Purchase Orders are included here in case they are used as a form of demand in your supply chain processes.
For Buffered parts, the value is the number of days past today and past due items in which R+ will include demand in the Net Flow Equation. If the value = 5, then all demand that is due today, in the past, and due 5 days in the future will be included in the net flow. It is highly recommended to leave all of these values at 0 as you will otherwise be routinely ordering up to 5 more days of inventory ahead of when you need it. This will increase your overall inventory values.
For Non-Buffered parts, the value is the number of days past the lead time of the NB item in which R+ will recognize demand against the part. If the lead time of the NB part = 10 and the demand order window value = 5, then R+ will react to and recommend orders on demand that is up to 15 days in the future.
This value respects the calendars in R+.
Demand Allocations Include Spikes in Net Flow
This setting gives you the option to include order spikes in the Net Flow calculation. It can be turned on or off by demand order type. It is highly recommended that you leave this setting set to ON (the green checkmark) as it will help you react faster to large orders that could overwhelm your buffer.
Supply Orders
This feature is active only when Full MRP and ‘Automatically generate supply orders for NB parts’ are turned on. Imagine a simple BoM, where Part A is a parent and its immediate children, B and C, are non-buffered and the fixed lead times for all three parts are 10. The R+ lead time for A will be 20 days.
When this setting is activated, R+ will look at the on-hand quantity of both B and C to see if there is enough quantity available to fulfill parent part A’s demand. If this is true, the supply order for A will have a promise date based on the fixed lead time of 10 days and not the R+ lead time of 20 days. Only non-buffered parts are taken into consideration since buffered child parts do not contribute to R+ lead times of their parent parts.
For those supply orders that have compressed lead times, R+ will display a message stating “Lead time compressed by XX days” in the Notes column to explain how R+ arrived at a promise date that is less than today plus the R+ lead time. Only when all the non-buffered child part’s on hand quantities suffice for parent part A’s demand will promise date compression take effect. In the event that there are multiple demands for part A, only those demands that can be met with on-hand quantities of parts B and C will have supply orders generated with compressed promise dates using fixed lead times. The remaining demands will continue to generate supply orders with full R+ lead times.
Daily Usage
Forecasted Demand and Forecasted Daily Usage (FDU)
If you enable the Use FDU imported with Parts file setting, R+ will use the Forecasted Daily Usage (FDU) imported from the Parts file.
The Weeks of forecast demand setting allows you to determine the number of weeks used for the FDU calculation. Specifying the number of weeks in this field enables R+ to use the number entered here to calculate the FDU using forecasted demand loaded into R+.
When Generate Forecasted Demand and FDU for child parts is selected, R+ will use the forecasted demand for finished goods imported into R+ and the Bill of Materials information to explode and consolidate weekly forecasted demands for the child parts. The calculation for child part FDU is fully explained in the below example.
Calculating Weekly Exploded Forecast Demand Values:
When calculating a child part's exploded forecast, you need to factor in the lead time for the parent part(s) and the quantities of all parent parts required for the assembly of the finished goods. The below example showcases how R+ calculates out exploded child forecasts. You can easily replicate this by reviewing the settings and downloading the Forecast file.
Default calendar is set to Mon-Fri.
There are two finished good parts – FPA and FPD. Both share a common immediate child PPA.
FPA has an Effective Lead Time of 10 days and FPD has 15 days.
FPA needs 10 units of PPA and FPD needs 1 unit of PPA
Forecast for FPA and FPD are imported into R+.
The exported “R+ Exploded Child Forecasts” file looks like this:
To calculate a component's forecast for a given week, R+ pulls the finished good forecast quantity from the week containing Today + FG Lead Time date. This value is multiplied by the quantity of the component part required to manufacture the finished good. Last, R+ will add the exploded forecast quantities from all finished goods for that component together.
For the component PPA, R+ would take the finished good forecast for FPA 2 weeks ahead from today (10 working days being FPA's lead time) and multiply that value by 10. Then it would take the finished good forecast for FPD 3 weeks ahead of today (15 working days being FPD's lead time) and multiply that value by 1. Last, it would add the FPD exploded quantity to the FPA exploded quantity. See below for the results of PPA's exploded demand for 4 weeks.
PPA’s forecast for 6/3/2019 = FPD’s forecast for 6/24/2019 * 1 + FPA’s forecast for 6/17/2019 * 10 = 100*1+0*10 = 100 
PPA’s forecast for 6/10/2019 = FPD’s forecast for 7/1/2019 * 1 + FPA’s forecast for 6/24/2019 * 10 = 0*1+100*10 = 1000 
PPA’s forecast for 6/17/2019 = FPD’s forecast for 7/8/2019 * 1 + FPA’s forecast for 7/1/2019 * 10 = 150*1 + 0*10 = 150. 
PPA’s forecast for 6/24/2019 = FPD’s forecast for 7/15/2019 * 1 + FPA’s forecast for 7/8/2019 * 10 = 200*1 + 150*10 = 1700.
Some child parts could have forecasted demands placed on them as they are after-market sales. In such cases, the forecasted demands will be in the CSV file for that part. R+ will combine the imported forecast and the derived forecast for the child parts to arrive at the combined forecast and then calculate the FDU.
Demand History and Average Daily Usage
If you select the Use ADU imported with part record setting, then R+ will use the Average Daily Usage (ADU) value imported with the part record for buffer size calculations. If Smart Buffer Profiler is run, it will still calculate ADU using the demand history and save it in the database.
The Weeks of demand history for ADU setting allows you to determine the number of weeks used for the ADU calculation. Specifying the number of weeks in this field enables R+ to use the number entered here to calculate the ADU using demand history.
You can utilize the Exclude negative demands for ADU setting to exclude data points from the demand history where the demand for a part in a particular day is below 0. This may occur if a customer returns inventory for instance.
Recommendations and Alerts
Default Order Spike Alert Level
This is the global default percentage of the red zone that daily demand will need to surpass to trigger spikes on parts in R+. While this is the default value for all buffers in R+, the order spike alert level can also be specified at the buffer level to a different percentage of the red zone. The spike settings at the buffer level (default or otherwise) will be what govern spikes at a part level.
Default Order Spike Horizon Level
This is the global default number of lead times in which R+ will consider spikes in the Net Flow. Like the Order Spike Alert Level, the order horizon level can also be specified at the buffer level. The spike settings at the buffer level (default or otherwise) will be what govern spikes at a part level.
Default Inventory Alert Level
This level is the percentage of the Red Zone that will trigger a High Material Synchronization or Projected Stock Out alert. This alert can be modified at the buffer profile level. Note that this will be the level used for all Non-Buffered parts for the MSA Alert.
Include Open Supply in Projected Stock Out
If you enable this setting, then the PSO Alert will count supply orders in the EDU based running balance. It is recommended that you do turn this setting on to give a more accurate picture of potential shortages. Leaving this setting Off will result in highly conservative, and most likely, more frequent alerts.
Include All Open Supply Orders in Material Synchronization Alert (v 4.16 and earlier)
If this setting is ON then all Supply Orders will be included in the MSA alert. If this setting is off, then R+ will only count demand in the running balance calculation for this alert. If you have an R+ version of 4.16 or less, it is highly recommended that you turn this setting ON. Otherwise, the dates on the MSA alerts will be unrealistic and you will see this alert more frequently.
The exception to this is if you have highly variable supply and you often cannot guarantee availability, in which case you may wish to have more conservative alert notifications.
Enable Material Synchronization Alert outside Alert Horizon (v 4.17+)
In all versions of R+ 4.17 or higher, Supply Orders are automatically included in the MSA alert. Instead, you have the chance to extend the MSA alert outside the set Alert Horizon of 1 Lead Time. This can give greater visibility to potential shortages outside the lead time to the extent that you receive demand orders outside this time frame. However, it will also likely increase the number of alerts you will see in the system and, in some cases, alert to situations that you have plenty of time to prepare for.
Allow Vendor Holidays to Change Request Date (v 4.16?+)
This setting allows you to determine if the Vendor Calendar should affect the request date. If this is turned ON, then a vendor holiday entered in the Vendor Calendar will push back the Request Date by the number of days in the holiday for the relevant part. If OFF, then the Vendor Calendar holidays will not affect the Request Date.
This setting is particularly relevant if you are using the Goods Receipt Time or, more critically, the Planning Calendars, which often require specific settings for Order Dates, Request Dates, and Order Receipt Dates.
Here are some examples of when you may want to turn this setting On or Off:
Situation
Setting
Using Planning Calendar to manage shipping times with the vendor
Turn ON; ensures that the Request Date (often the Ship Out or Pick Up date) matches the Supplier's availability
Using Goods Receipt Time for Transit time
Turn ON if the Request Date is the shipping date from the supplier
Using Goods Receipt Time for internal QA time
Turn OFF; the supplier's availability does not affect your QA processing time
Material Requirements Planning
There are multiple ways to configure the MRP Engine in R+ depending on the types of netting you wish it to perform and if you would like to utilize auto-approve for any inventory methods.
The Perform MRP Netting after import switch will turn on the Full MRP option. You should turn this to "ON" if you are using MRP netting in R+ and MRP is turned off in the host ERP system. In this type of MRP configuration, MRP will run after all imports/interfaces and the Demand file should contain only demand records of Finished Goods.
The Perform MRP Netting when creating new orders is recommended for use in two scenarios. First, this should be turned "ON" (not with the Full MRP Setting) when the host system continues to be the MRP system, but on approving buffered make parts in R+, you want to generate dependent demand orders for its children in R+. You should also consider turning this setting ON alongside the Full MRP setting so that even when R+ is doing the full MRP Netting, approving orders will make changes in the system as well.
If you choose to use either Automatically Generate Supply Orders for NB parts or Automatically Generate Supply Orders for MM parts then R+ will generate supply orders for NB/MM parts automatically as part of the MRP run. These orders would be in the Pending Orders table after the MRP run and would be transferred to your ERP during the next interface. If unselected, the Workbench will show these parts as “High” priority parts awaiting approval of recommended orders. During start-up, most users unselect this option. After a week or two, once they gain confidence, they select this option, saving the additional step of approving orders in Workbench.
Material Availability Check
R+ offers a Material Availability Check to help planners/schedulers be aware of any immediate child part shortages. These are the settings that govern this field in R+.
When the Ignore NB child parts with 0 inventory switch is turned ON, material availability check for NB child parts that have 0 inventory will not be done. Non-buffered child part is never kept in the inventory and they are mixed/created in-line production and consumed immediately, or some parts are vendor managed and the users consider showing these parts as “noise” in the Availability Review tab in the Workbench. In such cases, the users would prefer to turn this switch ON.
Recommended Orders Auto Approve
Location Filter
The Location Filter allows you to choose which Locations will run Auto Approval and which will not. If you are using the Fixed Reorder Cycle Feature you cannot leave this field to "Unrestricted", even if all Locations are using Auto Approval. For the feature to work properly, you must all locations in the dropdown.
Schedule Service
These settings allow you to set the specific days and times throughout the week that Auto Approval will run.
In Schedule the days of the week to run Auto Approve, you should select all of the days you want orders to be submitted on Auto Approve. This is often just your company's work days, but can be limited to only certain days or expanded to every day in the week.
In Schedule the time of the day to run Auto Approve, you should consider when you wish the Auto Approve job to run. When setting this time, you should consider when the interface runs into your timing. Do you want it to run before or after the daily interface brings data over from your ERP? Most of the time, the answer is "after the interface run" to ensure that Auto Approve is running on the most up-to-date data.
Last, the Schedule orders on holidays switch will determine if Auto Approve will work on holidays scheduled on the Holiday Calendar. The default setting is set to OFF. If you choose to turn this to ON, Auto Approve will run on all days allowed in the Days of the Week setting, regardless of whether or not there is a holiday on one or more of those days.
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