The capacity requirements planning (CRP) calculates the amount of labor and machine resources required to accomplish the tasks of production. Ultimately, the goal of CRP is to help you verify that the manufacturing plan is feasible. CRP accomplishes this function by calculating and simulating the workload for all work centers and labor classes, using information from other installed modules in IFS Manufacturing. CRP thus helps you plan your manufacturing activities with optimal efficiency.
Before working with CRP, you must enter certain basic data in IFS/Manufacturing. For example, you must enter work centers, i.e., production locations (such as a machine or department) where an operation is to be performed, and labor classes, i.e., the personnel manning these production locations. The capacity for the work centers and labor classes must have been defined and calculated.
In addition, you must enter basic information on structures and routings, which determines how operation scheduling should be done.
CRP considers all existing shop order requisitions, regardless of their origin. They can be entered manually, generated from order point proposals, generated from KANBAN, created in connection with MRP/Project MRP, or generated from the master scheduling. The system generates shop order requisitions originating from the master schedule when it performs Level 1 calculations. These calculations consider demand up to the planning time fence. CRP also considers the fixed and variable master schedule proposals that are located outside the planning time fence. Furthermore, it considers unreleased dynamic order processing (DOP) orders. Operation scheduling in CRP is performed through backward planning with no maximum capacity, with or without overlapping.
Within CRP, you can study resource requirements for a shorter period than is possible with resource requirements planning (RRP).
You can study the result of the CRP calculation using either using traditional list tables, or using the charts available in IFS/Manufacturing Visual Planning to help in identifying bottlenecks and potential overloads in production. You can also study operations to see which ones create a load for a certain work center/labor class during a certain period. Based on these projections, you can then change the manufacturing plan or existing and planned shop orders to stay within the capacity limitations of the selected work centers/labor classes. At the same time, CRP supports future dimensioning of production capacity.
At any time, the CRP process will have one of three statuses shown below.
| Status | Description |
| Calculation in Progress | The calculation begins. The system verifies that you have access to the specified sites and that no other calculations will interfere with CRP. The system automatically cancels CRP if MRP, master scheduling, another CRP session, or any combination of these is running. |
| Reading in Requisition | The calculation starts. The system deletes any information from the previous CRP for the sites that will be processed. The system then analyzes shop order requisitions and plans the capacity of each work center. This type of operation scheduling uses backward planning from the due date. The system does not consider whether other shop order requisitions affect the same work center the same day. Finally, the system maps out master scheduling requirements beyond the planning time fence that will generate shop order requisitions. This is similar to the process used for existing shop order requisitions. |
| Calculation Complete | The calculation is completed and you can view the result on the most detailed level using the Machine Load Details and Labor Load Details pages. |