Please ensure the requirements parameters include forecast as demand:

Else, I think you should provide an example to better understand the issue.

Your question is hard to respond to as it lacks sufficient detail. 

 Take a look at parameters In General parameters, Chapter STO->Group SCH and Chapter GPA->Group LOA.

Check also on product site, Planning tab, Planning block for firm and demand horizon.

An example of a demand horizon of 2 weeks, and forecasts ignored in the demand horizon.

Dear Julien

Thanks a lot for your response

I had the Forecasts not calculated and now its working 
I am trying to have also a better view on the MRP output .  I am have done the Demand Horizon as 4 months and now its working .

in our business process - we are trying to freeze four months of Customer Sales Orders and for Month 5 to 18 is forecasts .

our idea is to always do the procurement  calculations based on forecasts from our clients .  i would like to know your opinion if this is a good calculation or not or if you reccomend anything else from your experience in MRP implementations. 

I am considering that all active ingredients for production are bought on MRP and not ROP . 

Thanks a lot - this is clear -  i have left a message for Julien up and i would love to get your opinion as well on the parameters in general for a our business process .

our contracts generally are anywhere between 120 to 150 days based on firm cllinet sales orders and then its always non-binding forecasts , yet our site is designed to purchase componants according to annual budgets and rolling monthly forecasts . 

Hi Faris, first of all I see the demand forecast is properly setup.

Then I have no clear answer for you. I understand your question as : "it best to produce on demand or from a sales order?" To me buying on forecasted sales allow to better drive your supply chain (hence saving money) but you take a risk of having a wrong forecast and having too much stock on hand or a shortage. So the questions you have to answer would be:

- are you able to calculate reasonnably correct forecast?

- what is the cost of having an incorrect forecast?

From my experience, companies that can afford to have long shipment lead-time are buying on sales demand (MTO model). Companies that might lose the sales if the stock is not there when the customer place an order, will use forecasts (MTS model).

I hope this will hep you to assess the impact of your strategy.

Hi Faris,

I think one option would be setting your demand horizon to 4 month as you did, so that the system would ignore forecast the in the next four months. Then, under Setup -> Stock -> Requirement Parameters, check the "Forecast Offset" checkbox under the requirement, and make sure your bucket size for the 5th month and onward is greater than or equal to how you forecast. For example, if you are doing weekly forecast, you want to make sure you bucket size is by week or by month. 

What this will do is, for each bucket outside of the demand horizon, MRP will offset your forecast demand with your sales order demand. It compares the total of your forecast demand against the total of your firm sales order demand, and only take the greater of two as base for MPR calculation. 

So unless you receive large sales orders 4 month in advance and the total quantity is greater than your forecast, otherwise, MRP should suggest you to build/buy based on your forecast. 

That's interesting. Is there a way to reverse that? In other words, inside the demand horizon use the greater of forecast or firm and outside the horizon add them together? Still a newbie here...

I am actually here to figure this out now ! 
i want to know how it works within the firm horizon 

First, I want to be clear that Demand Horizon is different from Firm Horizon.

MRP first look at the demands, and Demand Horizon plays a role on what you considered as demand. 

Once the demand is determined, MRP then calculates and plans purchases/production to support that demand. That's where Firm Horizon comes in. Firm Horizon set a time frame where you tell MRP that you don't want any new suggestions regardless of the demand. In some production environments, sometimes the cost for schedule change is more expensive than the lost/late deliveries. If your process is to schedule your product on a weekly basis, you may not want some last minute demand to mess up your weekly schedule. In this example, you can set your Firm Horizon to one week. In that case, you system knows that you have already firm up your schedule for one week, and would not put new suggestion in. 

So what happens when MRP detects new demand within the firm horizon? MRP does not remove the suggestion you need within the firm horizon. It will simply MOVE the start date to the first day outside of the firm horizon with a "Delay firm Horizon" message, and put the real demand date under the "MRP date column". It's a way of saying that "You really need this by this date, but I am delaying out to a later date due to the firm horizon."  It's then up to the planner to review these "delay firm horizon" suggestions and see if he can fit them in manually in the firm weekly schedule. 

Let me know if this helps. Thank you!