1. MRP – Best Practices and Tips for Dynamics AX 2012 and What’s New in D365FO

2. Welcome and Introductions
Sr PFE Dave Phillips
Closing in on 15 years with MSFT
Started with Great Plains Software
SEE Joe Tews
5 years with MSFT
Prior consulting and work on Dynamics GP
In the process of visiting all MLB stadiums (9 down, next up San Diego)

3. Agenda Welcome and Introductions MRP Basics (Dave)
Save scenario type questions to the end please
Span 100 – 400 knowledge MRP levels
Might be some skimming in order to fit the time
MRP Basics (Dave)
MRP D365FO (Dave)
Live portion is VM on Platform Update 10
MRP AX2012 (Dave)
Live portion is AX2012 R3 CU 12
Support update (Joe)
Safety Stock
CU13 Released

4. Agenda (continued) Demand Forecasting (Dave and Joe)
White papers
MRP Assessment (Dave)
MRP Performance (Dave)
Conclusion (Dave and Joe)
Q&A – Everyone
We plan on leaving 15 minutes and would like to begin with questions on Safety Stock, workaround, and private fix.

5. MRP Basics – Content Suggestions
Dynamics AX 2012 manual 80423

6. MRP Basics (continued)
Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations Enterprise edition (D365FO)
D365FO Roadmap

7. MRP Basics (continued)
MRP is a set of techniques that uses bill of material data (and Routes), inventory data, and the master production schedule to calculate requirements for materials. It makes recommendations to reorder materials. Furthermore, because it is time-phased, it makes recommendations to reschedule open orders when due dates and need dates are not in phase. Time-phased MRP begins with the items listed on the Master Production Schedule and determines the quantity of all components and materials required to fabricate those items and the date that the components and material are required. Time-phased MRP is accomplished by exploding the bill of material, adjusting for inventory quantities on hand or on order and offsetting the net requirements by the appropriate lead times. *Source is APICS (see also Orlicky)

8. MRP Basics (continued)
Forecast
AX2012 R3 CU10 until AX 7 portion.

9. MRP Basics (continued)
BOMs, Formulas, Routes, Kanban

10. MRP Basics (continued)
Quick Demo of Dynamics 365FO. Dynamics AX2012 R3 CU12 as a contrast.

11. MRP Basics – Coverage Hierarchy

12. MRP Basics - Fences
All Roxana

13. MRP Basics - Margins

14. MRP Basics - Margins
Margins are cumulative

15. What’s New in D365FO MRP Workspace
New “Disable all planning processes” field in MRP Parameters (InventSumLogTTS)
Introduced pre-filtering of items so D365FO does not plan for items that do not have any demand (backported to R3, later in deck)
Improved multi-threading to allow for true parallelization of threads

16. What’s New in D365FO Improved the Planned Order list for easier usage
Cleaned up Logging when using Helpers
Improved the Action Graph form so it is simpler

17. What’s New in D365FO – Action Graph

18. What’s New in D365FO (continued)
There is a new Gantt chart
Some renaming. Futures are now called Delays and Delay Messages
For example, Calculated Delays form is ReqTransFuturesListPage
Cloud support
Telemetry

19. Support Update (Joe) AX 2012 R3 CU13 Just Released (LCS)
Spreadsheet of CU13 MRP KBs (see Dave)
Mainstream Support Lifecycle Timeline:
Dynamics AX 2009 SP1: Mainstream ends 04/10/2018; Extended 10/12/2021
Dynamics AX 2012: Mainstream ends 10/09/2018; Extended 10/12/2021
Dynamics AX 2012 R2: Mainstream ends 10/09/2018; Extended 10/12/2021
Dynamics AX 2012 R3: Mainstream ends 10/12/2021; Extended 01/10/2023

20. Support Update (continued)
Platform Update 10: August 2017
Application Update (July 2017): July 2017
Mainstream Support Lifecycle Timeline:
Modern Lifecycle Policy
Platform updates supported for 1 year after release
Application updates supported for 3 years after release
Platform Updates 2, 1, 7.0: Expired
Application Updates 7.0.1, 7.0: Expired

21. Support Update (continued)
Rolling Safety Stock Updates
Problems introduced with KB (included in CU12 +)
Essentially figures safety stock on a moving, or “rolling”, basis
Can be avoided by selecting the option “Consider shelf life” on the Master plan setup IF using Period coverage
Development is currently in the process of fixing
LCS Tracking ID : Period Coverage
LCS Tracking ID : Min/Max Coverage (Fulfill Min = Issue)
LCS Tracking ID : Min/Max Coverage (Fulfill Min = Today’s Date)

22. Support Update (continued)
Other Notable Fixes
KB / : Problems with BOM level recalculation, can lead to planned orders not generating (included in CU12)
KB / : Performance optimization due to circularity
KB : Checking circularity process for large amount of data
KB : MRP Auto-firming performance

23. Demand Forecasting
Demand Forecast became available with Dynamics AX2012 R3
Fills vacancy left by TXT Demand Planner

24. Demand Forecasting (continued)

25. Demand Forecasting (continued)

26. Premier MRP Assessment
The Premier MRP Assessment is a tool that examines the health of your MRP environment (R3 only right now).
How do you solve MRP issues?
See what KBs or Cumulative Updates (CUs) need to be installed
Check MRP Configurations
Investigate data integrity (migration and imports)
The tool automates those steps and generates a report.

27. Premier MRP Assessment (report)

28. Premier MRP Assessment (report)

29. Premier MRP Assessment (report)

30. MRP Assessment (continued)
At a high level, early, we’ve had some discussions about broadening use of the tool
Scripts are updated every quarter

31. MRP Performance (AX2012) DynPerf 2.0 tempdb size issue
See Dave for patched version or use DynPerf 1.2
This is a large KB
May need to index (e.g. query plan of ReqCalcNeutralDelete\run)

32. MRP Performance (continued)
New fields created by KB

33. MRP Performance (continued)
Recent R&D Collaboration
Microsoft Dynamics AX Server Configuration Utility – set Maximum Buffer Size to 128 KB
Microsoft Dynamics Configuration Utility – set Cache Settings to Best Response Time
Dynamics AX Client Configuration file – add line “performanceProfile,Text,3,”
Dynamics AX2012 R2 Server Configuration (System Administration | Setup | System | Performance Optimization fast tab)

34. MRP Performance (continued)
Dynamics AX2012 R2 Server Client Performance Options (System Administration | Setup | System with recent kernel)
Caution with these Client Performance adjustments
Citrix adjustment -

35. MRP Performance (continued)
Ensure breakpoints are turned off in Live (30 – 40% performance hit)
Adequate hardware resources
More AOS servers and parallelize the MRP run further
Dedicated AOS batch server for MRP (not on DB machine)
When setting up multiple AOSs use the Server Configuration | Performance optimization tab to define how AOS's work together

36. MRP Performance (continued)
One (heavy) routine at a time
Don’t run MRP with other batch processes at the same time, especially not with anything that’s just as heavy (Inventory Close for example)
Don’t run MRP with anything running on the OS (e.g. updates, watch movies, etc.)
Orphan record script improved (demo)
Unfinished Scheduling Processes form

37. MRP Performance (continued)
The old MRP plan is no longer deleted at the beginning of a MRP run. Instead a new plan is created in table ReqPlanVersion that is referenced by other Req (MRP) tables. This is done so the old plan can still be used during a run of MRP. However, at the end of the MRP run the old plan set to Inactive and the new plan is set to Active.
If a MRP run is clean a job spawns to purge the Inactive plan

38. MRP Performance (continued)
If a MRP run is a terminated for some reason the PlanVersion records can be orphaned
Use of Helpers will improve performance
Number of Helpers used during master planning needs to be less than or equal to the maximum number of threads allowed on the batch server
How many helpers?
Retail and Distribution (lots of independent items): Use many helpers because there is no dependency between items

39. MRP Performance (continued)
Manufacturing (lots of BOMs and shared subcomponents): Use less helpers because dependency between items may lead to waiting times.
Bundle Size?
There is no magic formula for determining the bundle size
Each bundle is in memory, so too many chunks can decrease the performance due to memory hogging

40. MRP Performance (continued)
For BOMs: same complexity items sometimes have similar item IDs, so they may get in the same bundle, that will take very long to process.
Helper mortality because of time out
Helpers are found on the Master Scheduling form
Bundle Tasks are found in MRP Parameters form

41. MRP Performance (continued)
Example of format that helped a Premier Customer.

42. MRP Performance (continued)
Do not Delete Plans
On Planned Order Number, Number Sequence ensure Preallocation is turned on.
Use the Master Plan, Time Fences to turn off Action and/or Future Messages.
Poor SQL constructs
Indexes, Queries, Caching
Poor code
Avoid Nested loops

43. Questions and Answers
Questions, comments, discussion points?

44. Conclusion
This concludes the MRP – Best Practices and Tips for Dynamics AX 2012 and What’s New in D365FO
Extend thanks to Chad Aberle, Roxana Diaconu and Chip Anthony for their thoughtful input and feedback on this content.

45. Topic
ABC
DEF

46. Topic
ABC
DEF

47. Parameter Sniffing
Parameter Sniffing can occur in many different applications. “Query parameterization promotes the reuse of cached execution plans, thereby avoiding unnecessary compilations, and reducing the number of ad-hoc queries in the plan cache. [However,] an execution plan that is efficient for one parameter value may not be a good choice for other possible parameter values.” (Paul White article)
The late Sr. PFE Michael DeVoe wrote an excellent Dynamics AX oriented blog on the subject located here…
Sometime MRP is fast and sometimes it is not.

48. Parameter Sniffing (continued)
Usually Parameter Sniffing is only in environments with multiple Legal Entities.
The KB fix in Michael’s blog addresses Partitions and DataAreaIDs (i.e. Company and Legal Entity).
In MS SQL “dbcc freeproccache” and then run MRP against your largest company to test.
Sometime MRP is fast and sometimes it is not.