What it produces
A ranked, enriched list of planning actions, executed in the ERP once approved.
Workflows
MRP Exceptions
the reschedule, cancel, release, and shortage messages a material requirements planning run produces for planners to act on
The job in one minute
Who owns it
The production planner, with the materials manager, demand planner and buyers.
How often
Every planning run, often nightly.
Why it hurts
MRP is exact math on inexact records. A receipt still on the dock, labor never posted, a supplier date nobody updated: each one produces a message that is technically right and practically wrong. Planners learn which messages lie and start ignoring whole categories. Then a real shortage hides among two hundred two-day reschedule-outs.
The opposite failure is nervousness. Change the plan every night for small reasons and suppliers stop believing your dates. A single missed reschedule-in can stop a line.
Systems it touches
The agent downloads the latest customer release schedules before the run, reads supplier status for context, and writes the ranked list to a table your dashboard can show. Product →
- ERP planning screens
- Power BI or Tableau
- Supplier portals
- Customer portals
- Outlook
- Excel
- SharePoint or OneDrive
- Teams
12 steps · 4 actions · 7 decisions · 1 human reviews
The workflow, step by step
Action Decision Human review Select a step in the flowchart to jump to it.
Show the flowchart
- 01 Decision · Agent Readiness check
- 02 Action · Agent Run regeneration and confirm the run log finished with no errors
- 03 Action · MES Export every message with its item, order, dates and pegging
- 04 Decision · Agent Sort by type
- 05 Decision · Agent Filter noise
- 06 Decision · Agent Anything inside the frozen fence goes to a person
- 07 Decision · Agent Rank by the ship date of the customer demand it protects
- 08 Action · Agent Add context to each row
- 09 Decision · Agent Low-value items on approved suppliers with valid prices may convert…
- 10 · Human review · Planner The planner approves
- 11 Action · ERP Firm or release orders
- 12 Decision · MES The same message on the same item three runs in a row becomes a…
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Decision · Agent
Readiness check: today's receipts, shop labor, open sales orders and released engineering changes are all posted. Any gap is listed and the run waits.
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Action · Agent
Run regeneration and confirm the run log finished with no errors.
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Action · MES
Export every message with its item, order, dates and pegging.
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Decision · Agent
Sort by type: reschedule in, reschedule out, cancel, release past due, below safety stock, shortage.
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Decision · Agent
Filter noise: suppress small reschedule-outs and tiny quantity changes under your thresholds, but never anything touching a customer order inside the horizon.
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Decision · Agent
Anything inside the frozen fence goes to a person, whatever its size.
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Decision · Agent
Rank by the ship date of the customer demand it protects, then dollar value, then days of slip.
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Action · Agent
Add context to each row: supplier confirmation status, open expedites, stock on quality hold, stock at another site.
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Decision · Agent
Low-value items on approved suppliers with valid prices may convert to purchase orders within your pre-approved limits.
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Human review · Planner
The planner approves, edits or rejects each ranked action in one batch.
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Action · ERP
Firm or release orders, change job dates, send PO date changes to expediting, and confirm each in the ERP.
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Decision · MES
The same message on the same item three runs in a row becomes a master-data case for the materials manager.
✓ Done
See it done in the Gallery
Rules vs judgment
The agent's login cannot edit item master data, and suppressed messages stay visible with the rule that hid them.
| Exact rule | Model reads | Person decides |
|---|---|---|
| Readiness gates, noise filters, fences, ranking, pre-approved conversions | Supplier emails and portal status for context; planning screens that scroll or paginate (every message counted against the export total) | Moving a date inside the frozen fence and pulling customer orders in or out (planner); planned orders over the value limit; lead time and safety stock changes (materials manager) |
When it stops
- high
Unmapped message code
The run stops until the materials manager maps it.
- medium
Reschedule-in that lead time cannot meet
Flagged as a shortage, not a reschedule.
- low
Supplier date later than need
Goes to the expedite queue.
- high
Cancel message on a PO that already shipped
Not cancelled; the buyer decides.
- medium
Supply on quality hold or at a sister site
Shown, with a transfer proposed or quality asked for a date.
- low
Supplier portal and email disagree
Both shown; ranking uses the later date.
What you end up with
- One ranked list each morning, with the reasons attached.
- Committed schedules that only move when a person says so.
- A record per run: readiness results, the full export, what was suppressed and why, what the planner saw and approved, and the ERP state afterward. If a write-down is questioned, you can show which buys a person approved and which a rule did.
Questions
Should the agent release planned orders on its own?
Only inside a table you control: low-value items, approved suppliers, valid prices, outside the frozen fence.
Does this replace our APS or planning tool?
No. The plan still comes from your ERP or APS. The agent handles the review work around it.
How do we set dampening thresholds without guessing?
From history. The agent shows which message sizes planners ignored and whether any of them later mattered.
Our planners live in a spreadsheet. Now what?
The agent reads it. Over time its hidden rules move into versioned tables and the sheet becomes an export.
No prompts. No babysitting. No Integrations.