Create and apply a plan - ION Manual

Create a plan

1. Click New Plan.
2. Select the Top-level part, the finished assembly or part you need to deliver. Autoplan plans from its released BOM.
3. Enter the Demand quantity as a whole number, and optionally a Due date. Autoplan uses the due date to calculate order-by dates, slack, and critical-path risk.
4. Click Next: Assumptions and review the planning and purchasing assumptions the plan starts from. Any field you leave blank keeps your organization’s defaults. See Edit part policies in a plan for what each field does.
5. Click Create Plan.

The plan opens and shows Staging the plan while Autoplan resolves the bill of materials, which usually takes a few seconds. If staging fails, the plan shows the reason and a Retry button.

Review the staged plan and run it

Once the plan shows the Staged badge, review it before running:

• The Overview tab holds the Demand card, the Planning assumptions and Per-part policy panels, and the BOM & order policy card. In the Demand card, adjust each line’s Quantity, Due date, and Priority. In BOM & order policy, set the Allocation strategy ( FIFO, LIFO, or Nearest due date) and the Safety buffer quantity. Edits save when you leave the field.
• The Components tab lists every resolved component with its Make / Buy classification, sourcing, lead time, required quantity, on-hand quantity, and shortfall. Correct a part’s Make / Buy value here if it is wrong; it decides whether Autoplan proposes a purchase order or a run for the part.

When the inputs look right, click Run Autoplan. The status shows Running while the engine computes, then the plan opens in the full workspace with results.

Review the results

The plan header shows the status pill, a schedule-health pill ( On track, At risk, or Late), and a supply-coverage summary such as “Supply covered for 4 of 10 components (6 short)”. If the plan has multiple phases, use the Phase buttons to focus one planning pass at a time. Download CSV exports the visible plan lines. Four views break down the proposals:

• Worklist is the action view. Shortfall lines are grouped into time-phased buckets by order-by date: Overdue, Order now (≤7d), Soon (≤30d), Later (≤90d), and Future (>90d), each split into buy and make tables.
• Build tree shows the plan as the build hierarchy, including parts already covered by inventory, with a coverage badge and a Clear to build read per assembly.
• Supply readiness leads with attention items, the rows that still threaten the plan, plus the purchase orders and manufacturing runs already linked to it.
• Timeline is a Gantt view of the plan schedule. It is marked Preview.

Stage the proposals

Staging collects the proposals you accept into an editable draft package. Nothing is created in ION yet.

1. In the Worklist, select rows in a bucket and click Stage POs or Schedule runs, or click Stage all in this bucket. In Supply readiness, select attention rows and click Stage selected. Buy parts route to draft purchase orders and make parts to draft runs automatically.
2. Open the Staging tab. Its badge shows how many lines are staged.
3. Review the draft purchase orders, grouped by supplier. Edit each line’s Quantity, Supplier, Need date, and Unit cost, or remove lines and groups. Every line needs a supplier before you can commit.
4. Review the draft runs in the production run batch, edit their quantities and due dates, and rename the batch if you want.

Refresh the plan

Click Refresh in the plan header whenever your supply chain or shop floor changes. Refresh re-pulls live supply from ION and recomputes the same plan in place; the plan ID does not change. The “Supply as of” timestamp in the header shows when the plan last refreshed.

Apply the plan

Committing the staged package is what creates real records in ION:

1. On the Staging tab, check the package summary and the Total estimated spend.
2. Click Execute / Commit to ION.
3. Confirm with Commit to ION. ION creates the purchase orders in draft status, so nothing is issued to suppliers, and creates the runs as a batch.

The Committed to ION section lists everything created, with links to each purchase order and run. If the purchase orders succeed but the runs fail, the button changes to Retry runs only so a retry never duplicates the purchase orders.

Archive a plan

When a plan is done or no longer needed, click Archive in the plan header. Choose Release eligible allocations to return unconsumed inventory allocations to available supply (recommended), or Keep allocations assigned to keep supply reserved to the archived plan. Archived plans stay readable, and their linked purchase orders and runs remain as history.