The document discusses the history and purpose of the "Planning Document", a concise report created by Mr. D to provide inventory planners all necessary information for planning in a single place. It began in 1980 as a report merging various data files, and evolved over time alongside changes to the company's planning systems. The document details the information contained in the Planning Document, how it helped planners do their job more efficiently, and its continued use until the company transitioned to a new planning system in 2006.

1. The Planning Document:
Everything a planners needs to know, but was afraid to ask.
A usable planningdocumentis anintegral partof good inventoryplanning. Itisthe interface between
the plannerandthe innerworkingsof the planning systemlogic. Its’purpose istoconveyimportant
informationtothe plannerinaconcise and understandablemanner.
In 1980, whenMr. D developedthe firstinventoryplanningprogramsatSundstrand,he wrote a SAS
(Statistical AnalysisSystem) programtomerge several filesof datatogether.The programdid the
statistical calculations anddeterminedif more inventories should be ordered. Since mostof the
importantdata foreach itemwasalreadymergedtogether aspartof thisplanning process, itjustmade
sense toprintall that data in one report. Hence,the firstSundstrandspares planningdocumentwas
born. It wasn’treallygivenaformal name;itwasjust the planningdocument.
The inventoryplannerslovedthose planningdocuments. Theywere agreattime saver, although the
printingof those documentswashardon trees. Remember, the 1980s wasthe Jurassicperiodof
computers – before PCsandthe Net,sothe onlymethod available todisplay resultswastoprintthem.
In today’sworldMr. D wouldsave the treesandproduce the printedimagesinHTML formatso that the
“documents”couldbe viewedviathe net.
In 1982, the CustomerService Organization implemented the CustomerOn-lineOrderProcessing (COOP)
system. The COOPsystemdidnot come with a planningdocument. The COOP systemmerely hada
real-time printednotificationcalledthe “On-line PO”. Itwasprinted whenanitembroke its’re-order
pointand a newreplenishmentorder(PO) wascreated. There wasno usable datainthat printout. It
was merelyatriggeringdevicethatpromptedthe inventoryplannertoreview the item usingthe
system’son-line screens. Unfortunately,evenusingafaston-line systemlikeCOOP,thistooktime. Also,
the initial COOP systemlackedalotof data that wasuseful tothe planningprocess.
To save time and provide betterinformationtothe planners Mr.D re-createdanew planningdocument.
In keepingwith the COOP namingconvention,itwascalledan“On-line”- as itreplacedthe “On-line
PO”.
COOPprovidedamuch richerprocess forplanningthenMr. D’s firstplanningsystem. There was much
more data available foraccess. Inaddition,thatdata wasrefreshed daily,ratherthanweekly. This
meantthat the planningdocumentswere printeddaily. Priortothe implementation of COOP the
planningdocumentswereprintedeachMonday.
You may askwhy Mr. D created thisprinteddocumentwhenthe COOPsystemwasreal-time,andthe
plannershadaccessto many real-time datadisplays.
First,the COOP systemwas initially deficientinthe amountof data that wasneededtodo effective
parts planning. These short-comingswere eventuallyaddressesand mostof data wasaddedto the
COOPsystem. These enhancementstookseveral yearstogetimplemented,andinthatinterimMr.D
createdand maintainedthatdataoutside of the COOPsystem.
Second, Mr. D has a learningdisabilitythatpreventshimfromretainingdatafromone screen display to
the next. Mr. D foundhe had to viewandre-viewthe on-line COOP screensseveral times toretainthe
info,andthat wastime consuming.

2. The Planning Document:
Everything a planners needs to know, but was afraid to ask.
Lastly, there wasstill datafrom sourcesthat were notavailable tothe COOPsystem –like datafrom the
repaircenterinventoriesand datafromthe MRP system.
The Sundstrandservice parts business usedMr.D’s planningdocumentfromthe pre-COOPdays,
throughthe COOP days,andinto the ERP era. That is,from 1980 until 2006.
In 2004 the Sundstrand methodof inventoryplanning(ROP) wasextendedtothe Hamilton half of the
Hamilton-Sundstrandbusiness. Whengoingtothe Hamiltonfacilityto give trainingonthisnew process
Mr. D and hisfellowSundstrandpeople wonderedwhattocall the planningdocument. The Hamilton
people hadnotusedCOOPso the name “On-line”conveyed littlemeaningtothem. One of Mr. D’s
colleaguessaidthatthe planningdocumentwasmeanttoconveythe “bigpicture”aboutan item, andin
accordance withthe lawof serendipity we settledonthe name “BigPicture”. The example shownin
thispaperis fromthe trainingmaterialsMr.D createdforthe Hamiltonplanners. Itisnot a great
example,butitisthe onlyimage of a Big Picture Mr. D couldfind.
Here’san example of aBigPicture.
Figure 1 The Big picture Page 1
External
and
Internal
Demand
by year
in
monthly
buckets.
Forecast
Future
Forecast
Values,
Codes,
and
parameter
settings.
Briefly,here’sthe scooponthispage.
Thisis a dailyBigPicture printedonMay 5, 2005. There were three kindsof BigPictures: 1). the daily
one for reviewingitemsthatbroke theirre-orderpoint. 2).A weeklyone to identify the top25 items

3. The Planning Document:
Everything a planners needs to know, but was afraid to ask.
(perplanner) thatneedexpediting.3). A weeklyone toidentifythe top25 itemsthat needtobe
deferred.
Thisitemisa sleeve whichis stockedatspareslocationCOMWL. The leadtime fromthe MRP systemis
86 days.The part isin the catalogwitha quoteddeliverytothe customerof 7 days. It isa stockedand
active item. The supplieris64752 and the itemislistedasbeinginproductioninthe MRP system. The
standardcost and catalogsell price are listed,buthave been redacted. The mostcommonendproduct
thisitemis usedon is identifiedviathe applicationcode “PW4ECA31”. Thisitemisplannedviathe ROP
(reorderpoint) method. The other planningmethodoptionis “supplychaininitiative”(SCI),whichis
usedforparts planned ina demandflow environinthe MRPsystem. SCIpartsare plannedatlessthan
full MFGLT. The MIN Qty is7 (the reorderpoint) andthe MAX QTY is 10 (the ROP+ EOQ). The TRIGGER
and BIN are the ROP and the EOQ. The min/max is COOPoriented.The trigger/binisJDEoriented. This
itemistargetedforan 87% service level. There is1piece of safetystockincludedinthe ROP. The next
line (OINT…etc.) relatestothe SCIplanningmethod.
Salesanddemandare basedupona 12 monthmovingcalendar,endinginthe lastfull month –April
2005 inthis case. The monthlyaveragesare listedas HISTORY. The annual count of ordersreceived
and the summedquantityare listedasCUSTOMER ORDER HISTORY. These numbersshould agree with
the averagesof the HISTORY data, but forsome reasondo not,due to a startup issue that Mr. D
corrected.
The itemhasa MANUALPO flagof N,whichmeansanynew replenishment-POswill be passedtothe
MRP systemwithoutanyinterventionfromthe planner.However,all POs were supposed tobe
reviewedbyaplanner. The MANUAL AllocationflagisY,whichmeansthe JDE systemcannot
automaticallyallocate andissue partsfromstock. Thispart isin trouble, soitwouldbe unwise toleta
computermake allocationdecisions. Lessthantwopercentof the partswere setto manual allocation
at any time.
The AVERAGETURN RATIO forthisitemiscalculatedat 15.6 times/yr. The CURRENT TURN RATIO is
baseduponthe current on-handstocklevel, whichiscurrently zeroforthisitem,soa turnratio cannot
be calculatedat thistime.
Monthlydemandforthe past 36 monthsis displayedbymajortype. The type “REPAIR”is the shipments
to the SundstrandandHamiltonrepaircenters. These repair centerswere customersof the spares
organization, justlike the airlineswere. Inthe earlydays,whenMr. D firstdevelopedthe spares
planningsystem,the Sundstrandrepaircenterscouldbe aproblem, andoftenorderedpartsmost
irrationally. Because of this, Mr. D believeditwaswise toseparate repairdemandfromairlinecustomer
demand.Thiswas an attemptto provide more informationtothe sparesplanners. CUSTOMER demand
isshipmentstoairlinesandthirdpartyrepairshops. Actually,the demandisnotbasedonwhenparts
actuallyshipped,butratheronwhenthe customerwantedthe itemsshipped. Forrepaircentersthe
replenishmentshipmentdatawasreplacedbythe actual issuestothe repairedunits.Mr.D extracted
that issue datafromthe accountingsystemif itwasavailable.

4. The Planning Document:
Everything a planners needs to know, but was afraid to ask.
The JDE andNEW I2 forecastsare the forecastdata from the I2 forecastingsystem. The JDE forecast
was use to calculate the ROP/EOQ. Forecastingisthe subjectof aseparate paper.
Figure 2 The Big Picture Page 2
The ATP section calculates
the planned order coverage
dates based on forecast,
sales order and safety stock
The suggested actions
section shows branches
PO reschedule
recommendations
Part
values
Here’sthe scoopon page 2.
The firstline showsthe currentON HAND stockbalance,the ON ORDER quantity,the TOBE ISSUED
quantity(customerbackorders) andthe NETINVentoryposition. The LEADTIME DATE is the date that is
86 days (MFGLT) fromthe documentprintdate (05MAY05). AMORTIZED USAGE is usedinthe
calculationof coverage dates.
The nextsectionis the listof all the POdetails. The JDE PO NUMBER, SCHEDULE DY andSCHEDULE
QUANTITY are listed. The ADV RSN isa code of whythe POwas created(mostlycode 01 – to cover
forecastdemand). The “Z” inthe ADV RSN code showsthat the plannerrequestedan expedited
delivery,butthe requestwasdenied. The COVERAGEDATESFIRST andLAST are a calculation of
expecteddate of use,basedupon the average monthly forecast,safetystockrequirements andcurrent
customerbackorderquantity.
The DRP THING (ATPsection) wasaddedwhenthe BigPictureswere rolledouttothe Hamiltonside of
the business. Since theyhadbeenonDRP for manyyears, Mr. D wantedto give thenafamiliarlooking
tool. There was some resistance fromthe Hamiltonplannersingoingtothe ROPmethod,andMr. D
wantedtoprovide toolswithwhichtheywere familiar.

5. The Planning Document:
Everything a planners needs to know, but was afraid to ask.
The SUGGESTED ACTIONSsectionisthe mostpowerful partof the document. Typically the firstdata
shownhere wouldbe Itemlevelnotes –suchas replacinginfo,orwhyan itemiscodedto manual
intervention,etcetera. Nextwould be the inventorylevelnotesmade bythe plannerastheyplanned &
re-plannedandexpedited &deferredthe part.
This itemhas a message onparts availabilityatotherstockingsites –a device tohelpidentifymal-
distributedparts. There were about20 differentscenariosMr.D lookedfor,andif foundprinteda
message tohelpfocusthe planneronthe issue.
In 2006 the Hamilton-Sundstrandservice partsplanning systemwasconverted fromMr.D’s systemto
an off the shelf systemcalledServigistics. All of Mr.D’s processes,includingthe planningdocument,
were lost.
Surprisingly,Servigistics initially hadnoequivalentplanningdocument. Atthe behestof Hamilton-
Sundstrand,andusingMr. D’s planningdocumentasa model,Servigisticseventuallyaddeda“Planning
Page”as part of theirstandardsystem.
Well,there itis;everythingyouwantedtoknow about the planningdocument. One more tastyentrée
inthe Mr. D smorgasbordof ideas. Take whatyou want,andleave the rest.
Contact Mr. D at MisterD@windstream.netif youhave questions.