What Is Enterprise Planning?
Also known as: LN Enterprise Planning, EP, LN master planning
Definition
Enterprise Planning is Infor LN's supply planning engine. It runs master planning and order planning across plan items, sites and companies, generating planned orders and reschedule signals from demand, inventory, lead times and the supply strategies defined per plan item.
Enterprise Planning Explained
Enterprise Planning replaced the older separate master production scheduling and material requirements planning modules of Baan IV with one engine covering both levels. Master planning works at an aggregate level over periods, suitable for capacity and sales and operations planning conversations. Order planning works at the order level for individual items, generating the planned purchase, production and transfer orders that buyers and planners actually act on.
The unit of planning is the plan item. Not every item needs to be planned by the engine: items controlled by statistical inventory rules or ordered manually can be excluded, which keeps the planning run focused and fast. For plan items you define the supply strategy, lead times, order quantity rules, safety stock and time fences, and these settings do far more to determine planning behavior than any global parameter does.
Scope is where LN differentiates. Planning can span sites and companies, with planning clusters defining which locations pool their supply and demand and how requirements cascade between them. A demand in one plant can generate a transfer from another, which in turn generates production there and purchasing beneath it, all in one run. Combined with project pegging, the engine can also keep contract-funded material planned separately from commercial demand.
Operationally the two things that determine whether planners trust the output are data quality and stability. Lead times and order rules that do not reflect reality produce plans nobody follows, and a plan that changes materially every run trains planners to ignore it. Time fences, freezing, and disciplined maintenance of item planning parameters are the levers that turn a mathematically correct plan into one the business actually executes against.
Why It Matters
- Planning parameters per plan item drive results far more than global settings, so parameter maintenance is an ongoing job.
- Cross-site and cross-company planning removes the spreadsheets that usually sit between multi-plant operations.
- Plan stability determines planner trust; an unstable plan is ignored regardless of how correct it is.
- Planning behavior interacts with pegging, so contract manufacturers must design both together rather than separately.
In Practice
When planners complain that output is wrong, audit item planning parameters before questioning the engine. Lead times copied from a legacy system, order quantity rules nobody has revisited since go-live and safety stock set once and never reviewed explain the overwhelming majority of these complaints. A quarterly parameter review beats any amount of engine tuning.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between master planning and order planning in LN?
Master planning works at an aggregate level over time periods and is used for medium to long term capacity, supply and sales and operations planning decisions. Order planning works at the individual item and order level, producing the specific planned purchase, production and transfer orders that planners convert into real orders. Many implementations use both, at different horizons.
What is a plan item in Infor LN?
A plan item is an item that Enterprise Planning actively plans, with its own planning parameters: supply strategy, lead times, order quantity rules, safety stock and time fences. Items not designated as plan items are managed by other means, such as statistical inventory control or manual ordering. Keeping the plan item set deliberate keeps planning runs focused and fast.
Related Terms
Freeze and Unfreeze (LN Planning)
Freeze and unfreeze are Infor LN Enterprise Planning actions that lock planned orders or planned quantities so a planning run cannot change or delete them. Freezing protects near-term commitments inside the planning horizon; unfreezing returns the records to normal regeneration.
Multisite (Infor LN)
Multisite in Infor LN is the configuration pattern for running several plants, warehouses or legal entities in one environment using sites, enterprise units and multiple companies, with intercompany trade rules that price and post transfers between them automatically.
LN Bill of Material
An LN bill of material is the parent-child list defining which components and quantities go into a manufactured item in Infor LN. Each line carries a position number, net quantity, scrap factor, effective dates and, optionally, the routing operation that consumes it.
Go Deeper
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