Generating the Auto Blend Plan
A key feature of the VinoEZ Blend Planning Module is the 'Plan' function. This generates recommended blends for an EUR, or entire Location, based on a set of key inputs.
Running the 'Plan' function within Blend Planning will then take these inputs for a particular EUR and output recommended volumes to blend, or 'Auto Qty' at the times when the volume will be needed.
Inputs
The main inputs can be seen at the top of the BPM UI.
The following data is considered when calculating recommended 'Auto Qty' blends.
EUR - End use requirement. This effectively is the brand, main varietal, main appellation or region and vintage that the blend planning is being done for.
Blend Loc - Blend location. This is the default blend location for the EUR
Blend Size - When generating “auto blends”, the system will use this value to round the blend requirement to. So, if there is a raw requirement of 800 and this is set to 1200, then the planned amount will be rounded up to 1200.
Note: there is an exception to this. If there isn’t enough “To Blend” wine available to meet this Blend Size, then it will only plan as much as what is left in the “To Blend” wine.
Blend Cov (coverage)- When generating “auto blends”, the system will use the setting to say how many days worth of total bottling demand needs to be covered in a particular blend. If you put 14 (days is the Unit Of Measure), the planning system will go out the next 14 days and add up the total bottling demand within those 14 days and use that as the raw requirement. From there the system rounds it up with the Blend Size.
This is also referred to as “cycle stock”.
Blend LT (lead-time) - Defines a window of time where you can’t realistically start and finish a blend.
SS Qty (safety stock qty)- Safety stock is a setting used to help keep a certain amount of ready to bottle wine always available just in case the bottling demand changes in a way that you need wine sooner than what can actually be turned around. It helps with maintaining a certain service level.
When generating the “auto blends”, this setting is used to determine when a blend should occur. If the projected ready to bottle inventory, dips below this amount, vinoEZ will try and create a new “auto blend”.
This particular setting defines the quantity of ready to bottle wine we should have on hand at any time.
Note: This works in conjunction with “SS days”. Whatever number is greater, will dictate the amount of safety stock being considered for that bucket of time.
SS days (safety stock days) - Safety stock is a setting used to help keep a certain amount of ready to bottle wine always available just in case the bottling demand changes in a way that you need wine sooner than what can actually be turned around. It helps with maintaining a certain service level.
When generating the “auto blends”, this setting is used to determine when a blend should occur. If the projected ready to bottle inventory, dips below this amount, vinoEZ will try and create a new “auto blend”.
This particular setting defines the days of bottling demand of ready to bottle wine we should have on hand at any time. If this is set to 14 days, it will go out 14 days and add up the total demand across that period. Whatever that sum is, will be the safety stock.
Note: This works in conjunction with “SS days”. Whatever number is greater, will dictate the amount of safety stock being considered for that bucket of time.
Parent EUR - If this is a child product, from which EUR is it derived? Parents will show dependent demand from their children.
Mat to bottle (maturation to bottle) - Months from the 1st December of the year of the vintage of the EUR e.g. PCR 17 – Mat to bottle of 1 makes 1st available date 2018-01-01; 2 would make it 2018-02-01
1st avail date - When is this bulk wine considered available for bottling
Plan lock date - If you want to “save” the generated “auto blends” from today to some date out into the future, you use this setting. So, if this is set to 2018-12-15 and today is 2018-07-01, it will keep the “auto blends” as they are within that span of time regardless if there is a need or not for more or less ready to bottle wine in the span of time.
Blend by date - This is used to force all “To blend” wine to have a blend plan by this date. Typically used in planning your blends prior to harvest. This is generally set to a date just prior to harvest.
To blend - Total wine in inventory that is not ready to bottle. Basically, this is the available inventory that can be used to make blends.
For Bottling - Wine inventory that can be used for bottling…“ready to bottle”
BOB qty - A status of the “ready to bottle” wine that is not yet finished. It is assembled but not quite ready.
Vintage Make - Target make for this blend. This is connected to the Bulk Wine Reconciliation model. Used as a reference rather than as an input to the auto-planning
Active - Whether this EUR is to be planned by the system.
So, if we take the example above, EUR ZAMNVCAS16 has the following inputs for blend planning:
The EUR will be blended at the ZAM location
Blends have a default volume of 50,000
At any point in time, there should be enough of the EUR blended to cover the following 7 days worth of blend demand
A lead time of 70 days on a blend (so 70 days is required from starting a blend for the blend to be available for bottling
A safety stock quantity of 0 but safety stock days of 30. So there should always be enough of the EUR ready to bottle to cover the next 30 days of bottling demand.
No parent EUR to roll up demand to.
A maturation to bottle of 2 months from the first date of the vintage year
No plan lock date (so auto quantities can be replanned for any date, even next week)
No blend by date (so no requirement to have all volume blended by a certain date)
No inventory currently available to blend
No inventory currently ready to bottle
No wine not quite ready to bottle
A target of 52,675 for this vintage (for reference information)
Running the Plan
At any point in time, the plan for an EUR can be seen in the bottom area of the main BPM screen. This will appear on both the BPM - Locations view and the BPM - Winemakers view. Refer to the Blend Planning Overview page for further detail on the data displayed here.
The plan for this particular EUR can be run by selecting the 'Plan ZAMNVCAS16' button in the top right of the view. Running this function will perform the following steps:
Look at the beginning inventory of ready to bottle wine
Add in any planned Bulk Wine Purchases (refer to Bulk Wine Movements)
Look at how much of this will be required to meet that week's bottling demand (in the Total Dmd column - which is the sum of 'Bulk Wine Sales', 'Bottling Dmd' and any 'Dep (dependent) Dmd' - ie bottling demand for child EURs.
Look at any 'Firm Qty' blend plans which will result in additional wine being available for bottling
Use this information, plus the overall EUR inputs defined above, to determine whether any additional wine needs to be blended to meet bottling demand. If it does, schedule an 'Auto Qty' blend of the 'Blend Size' (or of all remaining wine to be blended if 'Blend By' date has been reached.
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