DecisioWorksThe business question
What time-phased production plan can be generated from the given demand, capacity and material conditions? After changing load- and waiting-related objectives, did demand coverage, load or shortages change? Planners need to inspect both physical quantities and how the plan is evaluated.
Input: connect the business objects
| Object | Records | Business meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Order lines | 1,920 | Demand items, quantities and due dates |
| Capacity | 50 | Work-center availability by time unit |
| Operation-material links | 38 | Materials required by operations |
| Material availability | 500 | Material readiness by time unit |
| Time units | 25 | A shared time coordinate for demand, capacity and results |
| Work centers | 3 | One parent workshop and two production lines, not three machines |
The capacity.used field represents the occupied or unavailable proportion, from 0 to 1. It is not the utilization calculated by this solve. Establishing that meaning gives everyone the same capacity baseline.
Configuration: expose constraints and objectives
| Setting | Baseline | Adjusted |
|---|---|---|
| Capability workflow | production_planning | Unchanged |
| Demand, capacity and material constraints | Enabled | Unchanged |
| Soft capacity constraint | capacity_soft = true | Unchanged |
| Inventory constraint | Disabled | Unchanged |
| job_bias weight | -0.001 | -0.003 |
| waittime weight | 1 | 2 |
| Solver resources | 16 threads / 120-second limit | Unchanged |
After reading and checking the data, an orchestration recipe assembles objectives and constraints and calls GOCK to generate a plan. Analysis then examines planned quantities, shortages, load and objective details. The re-run uses the same data and retains configuration differences for review.
Output: did the business quantities change?
| Measure | Baseline | Adjusted |
|---|---|---|
| Valid candidates returned | 1 | 1 |
| Plan result rows | 66 | 66 |
| Total demand / output | 680,500 / 680,500 | 680,500 / 680,500 |
| Final shortage | 0 | 0 |
| Planned load rate | 31.74% | 31.74% |
| Weighted job_bias | -7,854.678 | -23,564.034 |
| Recorded elapsed time | 14.41 seconds | 14.29 seconds |
| Action events / errors | 12 / 0 | 12 / 0 |
The aggregate business quantities stayed the same, while weighted job_bias changed with its weight. That score change alone does not demonstrate a production improvement. Matching aggregates also do not prove that every task assignment stayed identical; detailed results are needed for that assessment.
Apply the approach to your own planning
- Check that order, work-center, route, material and time identifiers connect correctly.
- Separate mandatory conditions from soft constraints that can be expressed through a penalty.
- Keep an approved baseline and, where possible, change one factor per comparison.
- Review detailed plans and business measures with the planner responsible for accepting changes.