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How to schedule tanks as work center capacities

ann_hustis
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My client is running Discrete Production in ECC but fermenting liquid in tanks and then blending the fermentation. (I know they should use PP-Pi). After we confirm the fermenting operation the product might remain in the tank for 1 hour to 1 week before it is blended in the next production order. From a capacity planning point of view we represent the fermenting cellar as 1 work center with 10 machine capacities (tank = machine). What is the best way to represent the waiting time in the tank: a second routing operation with a standard value = avg. time in tank? How can we easily/efficiently update a bunch of production orders' operations' capacity requirements when the product is going to remain in the tank significantly longer than the average? Once we empty the tank how can we easily/efficiently confirm a bunch of production orders' operations to show that several tanks are no longer occupied and available for the next order? Thank you very much!

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Hi Ann,

Thank you for a very detailed reply. We will see how we can use your input when designing the brewing process for our new client. On top of that we will investigate the roadmap for embedded PPDS in S/4HANA since my contact at SAP has revealed some coming Tank Management functionalities.

Best regards,

Morten

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Hi Ann,

I just found your post while I was searching any inputs or hints for a new client we are engaging with. The client is a brewery with the exact challenges you are describing. We are proposing a S/4HANA implementation and are investigating whether the embedded PPDS functionality can do the trick, but from the SAP Roadmap we have learned Tank Management will come in future releases. We are also investigating whether we should look for any 3rd party software, but we would really like to avoid a complex system landscape with integration.

So my question to you is simply, have you found any good standard solution to solve the planning of bottleneck resources like Silos and Tanks or are you using any 3rd part solution? How about the monitoring of actual content in each Silo? If you model the silos as Resources in SAP, I guess you are not able see any intermediate stock in Inventory Management?

I hope you can give a short update on how you have come around your challenges.

Best regards,

Morten Pedersen, SCM LoB Director at NTT Data Business Solution, Denmark

ann_hustis
Contributor
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Hi Morten,

We used standard ECC for our solution and it worked just great! Unfortunately, almost all of the project documentation is on the client supplied laptop which I no longer have. So, this detail is mostly from my memory.

The process had 3 BOM levels:

  • 1.Ferment
  • 2.Blend
  • 3.Fill & Package

The Fermented Base Routing had 2 Operations:

0010 Ferment Base and Goods Receive 144 hours

0020 Hold Base, confirm when empty 72 hours

We created a formula that split the operation’s requirement over multiple tanks. In the routing we used “Required splitting” and Min. Processing time to plan the correct number of tanks for tank capacity planning.

When we confirmed Oper 0010 and did the goods receipt of Fermented Base we also did a Warehouse Management movement to show the inventory in a BIN (BIN # = Tank #). So, we could see from the WM reports how much Fermented Base was in each tank.

The tanks were still occupied from a capacity point of view because Oper 0020 still had capacity requirements.

When we blended the Fermented base under a Blending Production Order, we did a subsequent confirmation on the Fermenting Production Order’s Oper 0020 to show that those tanks were now empty.

If we had to hold onto some of the Base for longer than the 72 hours, we simply rescheduled Oper 0020 into the future in graphical planning.

Note that we also had this tank concern during the Filling & Packaging process; the blended liquid remained in the blending tanks for the duration of the filling operation. To solve this, we added the tanks as Oper 0005 on the Filling Production Order; see screen shot below.

Oper 0005 was confirmed by milestone when the Filling Oper 0010 was confirmed. So, when 25% of the filling production order was confirmed, 25% of the tanks would be emptied and available for the next Blending production order. The minimum processing time in the routing operation in the screen shot below was based on several factors such as:

  • The fill volume per bottle (e.g. 660mL)
  • The line speed in bottles per hour

In summary, we used standard ECC and it worked very well. I hope this helps!

Regards, Ann

Mahendran8888
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Hi Ann Hustis,

1) What is the best way to represent the waiting time in the tank: a second routing operation with a standard value = avg. time in tank?

I am assuming Waiting time is Processing time which is not merely waiting. If it is the processing we can have second routing line only for Machine hour. Waiting hour for standard we can map with master recipe routing.

2) How can we easily/efficiently update a bunch of production orders' operations' capacity requirements when the product is going to remain in the tank significantly longer than the average?

This is deviation from the process. Tank can be filled with material for accepted hours but once if it goes more than that organisation needs to change average hours only.

3) how can we easily/efficiently confirm a bunch of production orders' operations to show that several tanks are no longer occupied and available for the next order?

Once confirmed after completing all the process the tanks will be freed from the material SAP algorithm automatically understand Machines are free and it will show available capacity in the reports. Or else you separate enhancement where you can update the tank status with plant and genarate a data. That will give clear information

Regards

Mahe

ann_hustis
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Thanks for your answer Mahe. Please let me elaborate.

1) Yes, while the fermented liquid stays in the tank it must be considered extra processing time since it is uses machine (tank) capacity. So I agree, we will represent this as a second operation on the routing using the average expected time it will stay in the tank, for example 3 days.

2) Let's say that of the 10 fermenting production orders that are open on the floor the operator decides that 6 must remain in the tank for 7 days (not 3 days per the operation time from the routing). These are dispatched operations in graphical planning. What is the most efficient way for him to update the remaining capacity for all 6 production orders from 3 days to 7 days? Please provide the transaction code you would use.

3) Now let's say that the 7 days has passed and these 6 tanks are emptied (goods issued) to the next production orders for blending. What is the most efficient way to finally confirm this second operation on all 6 fermentation production orders in order to release the capacity requirements to free up the tanks? Transaction COHV for mass confirmations at the operation level does a PCNF; not a CNF. I'm not sure why. We need a CNF to release the capacity requirements on the work center (tanks). Again, please provide the transaction code you would use.

We want to use standard SAP functionality; no Z transactions.

Thank you very much!