Production Planning

Production Planning start from customer orders, sales forecasts, and possibly stock targets determined by the S&&OP, to determine what has to be produced and what should be ordered to suppliers.

Item Reorder Policy

For each item, it is necessary to specify how order proposals are calculated using many parameters.

Two main types of methods: inventory management (order point type) and management on future needs (MRP).

One can impose a safety stock, rules for lot sizing (how to determine the size of the production batches), the normal lead time to obtain the item.

MRP - Material Requirements Planning

The procedure for calculating net requirements involves the following steps:

  • Entry operating calendars (multi-calendars allowed),
  • Development of a Master Schedule for each item,
  • Materials Requirements Planning calculation (with numerous parameters),
  • Generation of Planned Work orders (WO) and Requisition Orders,
  • Analysis of software recommendations.
Workload Graph

CRP - Capacity Requirements Planning

The MRP calculation generates work orders without taking into account available capacities of resources (infinite capacity planning).

To ensure the feasibility of the production plan, it is necessary to verify that the work loads generated are compatible with the capacity of the resources by the following procedure:

  • Scheduling of Work Orders (calculation of earliest and latest start and end dates of each operation)
  • Accumulation of the loads incurred on each resource (machines and labor, possibly by qualification, and tools)
  • Capacity Utilization and Work Order slack analysis
  • In case of overload or negative slacks, study of corrective actions

Firming the planned work orders

When a satisfactory production plan has been reached, the planned orders must be firmed and transmitted to manufacture. The firm orders are taken into account by the next MRP calculation.

Firm work orders must then be scheduled with finite capacity and then released for production.

Firm purchase requisitions are sent to the Purchasing department, which transforms them into purchase orders.