What Is Rough-Cut Capacity Planning?
Also known as: RCCP, rough cut capacity, RCCP vs CRP, rough cut planning
Definition
Rough-cut capacity planning (RCCP) is a high-level check that the master production schedule can be met by critical resources such as bottleneck work centers, using bills of resources or routing profiles, before detailed MRP and capacity planning run.
Rough-Cut Capacity Planning Explained
RCCP sits between the master production schedule and MRP. It takes the planned quantity of each master scheduled item, multiplies by a bill of resources or load profile that states hours required on key work centers, and totals the load by period against available capacity. If the master schedule overloads a bottleneck, planners adjust the schedule before it propagates into detailed planning.
It is deliberately coarse. RCCP looks only at critical or bottleneck resources, uses average times rather than routing details, and ignores existing work in process and exact lead time offsets. That keeps it fast enough to run for many what-if master schedule versions during sales and operations planning.
Detailed capacity requirements planning (CRP) is the next step. It uses planned and released orders from MRP with full routings and lead time offsets to compute load per work center per period. RCCP validates feasibility early. CRP validates execution once MRP has produced detailed orders.
Support is uneven. SAP provides long term planning and rough-cut evaluation tools, Infor LN supports capacity checks at the master plan level, and in SyteLine the same intent is usually met with APS or manual analysis of work center load. Plants without a formal feature often reproduce it in a spreadsheet of bottleneck hours per unit.
Why It Matters
- It stops the master schedule from promising volume the bottleneck cannot make.
- It is cheap enough to run for several sales and operations planning scenarios in a meeting.
- Catching overloads here avoids discovering them weeks later as late orders and overtime.
- It makes the link between sales commitments and constrained resources explicit.
In Practice
Example: a machining cell has 400 available hours per week. The master schedule for a product family plans 500 units, and the bill of resources says 1.0 hour per unit on that cell. Load is 500 hours against 400 available, a 25 percent overload, so the planner shifts 100 units to earlier or later weeks or adds a shift.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between RCCP and CRP?
RCCP checks the master schedule against key resources using average load profiles. CRP checks MRP planned and released orders against all work centers using detailed routings and lead times.
What is a bill of resources?
It lists the hours of each critical resource needed per unit of a master scheduled item, used to convert the master schedule into load.
Is RCCP needed if I use finite scheduling?
Finite scheduling covers detailed feasibility, but RCCP is still useful at the planning level to test volume plans before orders are generated.
Related Terms
MPS (Master Production Schedule)
An MPS (master production schedule) is the time-phased statement of which end items a plant will produce, in what quantities, and in which periods. It is the anchor demand input MRP explodes into component requirements.
Capacity Planning
Capacity planning is the process of comparing the labor and machine hours a production plan requires against the hours each work center actually has available, identifying overloads early enough to reschedule, add shifts, or outsource.
MRP (Material Requirements Planning)
MRP (Material Requirements Planning) is the ERP calculation that explodes demand through bills of materials, nets it against on-hand and on-order inventory, and offsets by lead time to produce timed purchase and work order suggestions.
Theory of Constraints
Theory of Constraints is a management methodology, developed by Eliyahu Goldratt, holding that every system is limited by a small number of constraints, and that overall performance improves only when effort is focused on the constraint.
Go Deeper
Production Scheduling Maturity Assessment
Score your scheduling practice across method, capacity logic, adherence, and shop floor feedback - and see the staged path to finite-capacity scheduling.
SyteLine Capacity Requirements Planning (CRP) Guide
Configure SyteLine Capacity Requirements Planning with work center capacity, routing-based load calculation, and bottleneck analysis for production scheduling.
Infor LN Capacity Planning and CRP Guide
Configure capacity requirements planning in Infor LN with work center setup, capacity profiles, CRP analysis, and finite scheduling for load balancing.
SyteLine Master Production Scheduling Best Practices
Master production scheduling in SyteLine with planning bill configuration, time fence management, rough-cut capacity checks, and schedule stabilization techniques.
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