Production planning in 4 steps

Production planning is deciding what will be made, when, on which machines and with which resources, so that production runs without avoidable stops and waste. A good plan keeps the process moving and uses the capacity you already have. Pressure on quality and on the cost of the finished part makes a plan built on estimates wear out quickly.

The production planning process below has four steps: prepare the work, choose the tools, monitor the machines, then analyse the data and feed it into the next plan.

The four steps

1. Prepare production: design, process, organisation, start-up and upkeep.
2. Choose the kind of planning and the tools: operational, tactical or strategic; ERP, APS, MES.
3. Monitor the machines in real time: compare execution with the plan and find the bottlenecks.
4. Analyse the data and change the plan: real run times, stops and failures are the basis of the next plan.

Step 1. Prepare the work before you start it

Before anything is cut or formed, the job needs five kinds of preparation:

• design — what you are actually making;
• process — how, and on which machines;
• organisation — who, on which shifts, and in which order;
• start-up — how a new part is brought into production;
• upkeep — how the machines stay in working order.

Once the route and the machines are clear, you can improve the process in small steps.

Step 2. Choose the horizon and the tools

Operational, tactical or strategic?

Decide whether you are planning one job at a time, or whether you are building a tactical or strategic plan. Then fix the parts, the dates and the steps that lead to the finished product. That is the schedule.

ERP, APS and a MES: who does what

The schedule does not have to be built by hand. ERP and APS systems support production scheduling, material requirements, resource use and the stores. A MES shows how that plan is actually running on the shop floor. In Scout MES, production scheduling is a calendar:

• you set when jobs run, and who is on the shift;
• you mark planned offline time, for example holidays, maintenance or an unstaffed shift, so that time does not drag the calculated performance down;
• planned offline time and staffing can be imported from an XLSX file.

The schedule is joined to the machine data, so the plan and the execution sit in one place. ERP integration, for example pulling jobs from the customer’s system, is prepared individually for that system, because every ERP is different. See MES ERP integration. It is not a standard connector you switch on.

Scout MES has a 14-day free trial. Current prices are on the pricing page.

Step 3. Monitor the machines and compare them with the plan

Bottlenecks show up when you watch the machines in real time. That is the main job of a MES. Real-time machine monitoring in Scout shows, for each machine, the current status (running, idle, offline), the employee, the job and process values such as the program in progress. Historical reports are available from a browser, at any time. You compare them with the production plan and see whether it is being met.

What the machine cannot say, the operator adds. On the operator panel they report a changeover, a breakdown or the part result (OK or NOK). Stops in the plan then have a cause, not only a duration.

How do you start collecting the data?

You connect the machines to the LAN and prepare a Windows PC. We do the rest remotely: we install and configure SCT, and we connect popular CNC controls within minutes. Scout MES already monitors over 1,900 machines for over 130 customers.

Step 4. Read the data and correct the plan

Once you have figures such as the average time between failures, or the real run time of a machine on a given shift, you can change the plan while it is still useful. Automatic collection means the plan rests on measured time, not on an estimate.

You may find that the sequence, the staffing or the batch size has to change if the machines, the tools or the material are to be used properly. Looking at current stops and clearing them is what raises the output the plant can actually promise. OEE for a machine, a shift or a job is calculated in OEE software. Guides on planning and monitoring are under production monitoring and planning.

Rules worth keeping

• Prepare first. A plan with no design, process or organisation behind it does not survive contact with the floor.
• Match the tool to the job. ERP or APS for the plan, a MES for what really happened.
• Plan from data, not from estimates. Real run time and real stops show how much you can make.
• Close the loop. Compare execution with the plan and correct the next one.

How the data gets off the floor is covered in production monitoring.

Questions

Related

Feature

Production scheduling

Production scheduling in Scout MES: shifts, jobs and planned offline time in a calendar, linked with data from your machines. See how it works.

Guide

Production monitoring

Job cards, a camera or data straight from the control? See what Scout MES reads from the machines, what the operator adds and how machines without a CNC are connected.

Topic

OEE and downtime

OEE and downtime explained: availability, performance and quality of each machine, downtime on a timeline, alerts and andon calls in Scout MES.