Smart Blueprint Use Case

Blueprint use case for the production of chocolate. A smart blueprint has been created to hold the blueprints below and simply labeled “Chocolate”.

Chocolates Q1.2016 (Effective Date 1/1/2016, Conclusion 3/31/2016)
Chocolates Q2.2016 (Effective Date 4/1/2016, Conclusion 6/30/2016)
Chocolates Q3.2016 (Effective Date 7/1/2016, Conclusion 9/30/2016)
Chocolates Q4.2016 (Effective Date 10/1/2016, Conclusion 12/31/2016)

Based on the quarterly blueprints above, when the Chocolate smart blueprint is used on 1/1/2016 the system will return the Q1 blueprint, if used on 5/1/2016 - use Q2, if used on 7/8/2016 - use Q3, and so on.

Let’s take this example further. Suppose the production of snacks has generally been level throughout the year except for chocolate, which exhibits a bias for stronger demand in the second half of the year due to special events and holidays in North America. The company also produces chocolate for an entire school district end of September, and beginning in February during their fund raising season. In addition to various data inputs the master scheduler has forecasted the following jobs, and creates a blueprint to fulfill the orders and bundles them in one smart Chocolate blueprint.

Jobs in this example, can be of any variety or skill.

Chocolate Default (Effective no date, Conclusion no date) = 7 jobs
Chocolate SEP Fundraiser (Effective 9/20/2016, Conclusion 10/4/2016) = 9 jobs
Chocolate Q4 (Effective 10/1/2016, Conclusion 12/31/2016) = 11 jobs
Chocolate FEB Fundraiser (Effective 2/01/2016, Conclusion 2/10/2016) = 15 jobs

Based on the effective dates for the blueprints in the example above:

The system will return the Chocolate Default blueprint with no effective date in January, March, April, June, July, August; and in the last days in February and the first days in September due to overlapping periods.
The system will return the Chocolate SEP Fundraiser blueprint on September 21, 2016.
The system will return the Chocolate Q4 blueprint on October 4, 2016.

Note:

Although the SEP Fundraiser blueprint overlaps the Q4 blueprint. The Q4 blueprint contains the nearest effective date in the past, which is October 1st relative to the target date of October 4th.

Now, let’s take the example deeper. Suppose the master schedule must reflect the peak in resources for the production of chocolate. This means we have two overlapping critical periods where the job count changes to cover the fundraisers; and it just so happens that one of the fundraisers overlaps another peak period - the holiday, Valentine’s Day commonly celebrated in North America.

If this is the case, a blueprint is needed to cover the additional job count; for example, between 10/1/2016 and 10/4/2016 a blueprint is required to create a total of 20 jobs; doing so, also changes the Chocolates Q4 blueprint’s effective date to October 5th because the effective date of each blueprint must be unique when contained inside a smart blueprint. The same configuration would apply to Chocolate FEB Fundraiser, if additional resources are needed to cover that period.