Overview

The Capacity Plan module in CRYSTALL BALL is designed to help businesses align production capacity with sales demand. It integrates with the company’s Bill of Materials (BOMs), Operations, and Workstations/Production Teams to ensure that demand forecasts (from Expected Sales or Sales Orders) can be translated into realistic and achievable production schedules.

By using Capacity Slots, the module allows planners to identify constraints, allocate resources effectively, and create a clear link between demand and production execution.

Purpose

• Bridge the gap between forecasted demand and manufacturing capability.
• Identify capacity shortages before they become bottlenecks.
• Provide visibility into available workstations, routing, and teams against expected demand.
• Enable proactive decisions for outsourcing, overtime, or rescheduling.

Key Features

1. Integration with Crystal Ball Settings

• Only Final Products defined in Crystal Ball Setting are considered for capacity planning.
• Ensures that planning is restricted to valid and approved products.

2. Production Teams / Workstations

• Define production resources such as:
  • Workstations
  • Teams
  • Operations (from Routing/BOM)
• Capacity can be set based on time slots, shift hours, or quantity per slot.

3. Capacity Plan Document

• Source of demand:
  • Can be created directly from Expected Sales (forecast-based planning).
  • Or from Sales Orders (order-based planning).
• Displays demand for each Final Product.
• Links demand quantities to the relevant BOM and Routing.

4. Capacity Slots

• Breaks down demand into time-based slots across the selected period (weekly/monthly).
• Calculates required hours per operation.
• Compares against available capacity of Workstations/Teams.
• Highlights:
  • Overloaded slots (capacity shortage).
  • Underutilized slots (available extra capacity).

Workflow

1. Select Demand Source → Choose Expected Sales or Sales Order.
2. Load Final Products → System fetches products from Crystal Ball Setting.
3. Map BOM & Routing → Identify operations and workstation requirements.
4. Generate Capacity Plan → System calculates demand vs. available capacity.
5. Create Capacity Slots → Breakdown into daily/weekly/monthly views.
6. Analyze Results → Detect bottlenecks and free capacity. (Insert workflow diagram here: Demand → Capacity Plan → BOM & Routing → Capacity Slots → Analysis → Decision/Action)

Business Value

• Ensures that sales commitments are achievable with available resources.
• Reduces the risk of production delays caused by unnoticed bottlenecks.
• Improves planning accuracy by linking demand directly with manufacturing constraints.
• Provides management with visibility for strategic decisions (outsourcing, investment in new machines, hiring).
• Optimizes use of available capacity and reduces idle time.