Production planning is about finding a good balance between market needs and production capacity. The planning process is one of the most important functions of production and a poorly functioning one not only loses customers and business opportunities, but also exhausts staff and damages quality.
On the other hand, a well-functioning planning process can be a good tool to minimise high production-related costs, such as; materials, maintenance-related stops in the production line and energy consumption.
But what does production planning actually mean? It is a broad concept and can include long-term planning, detailed planning of production materials and operations, and daily coordination on the production floor.
The main objective is to arrive at the right number of products to be produced at the right quality and in the right time. There is a lot to consider before getting there!
The planner is the spider in the web and needs to have an overview of production flows, stock levels, customer orders, internal lead times, and at the same time take into account resources such as staff and machines. Based on this information, production orders are planned and the production schedule is communicated to the relevant parties. A follow-up is then carried out to ensure that the planning has been followed with the desired result.
From challenges to competitive advantage
The most common challenges that clients come to us with are difficulties in being flexible enough in their planning process to deal with changing circumstances. Demands for fast response times are increasing, production processes are becoming more complex and competition is intensifying. It is then important that the producer keeps up with changes in the world and development journeys. The ability to quickly re-plan and to smoothly create different scenarios and measure them against each other is therefore an important benefit of a planning tool.
Thanks to the ability to simulate and visualise events, a production planner can detect, for example, material shortages in good time and then have a chance to act in time. The result is better compliance with promised delivery times and more efficient production with reduced downtime. With the right planning support, customers can also be promised the right delivery dates and proactively updated on any changes, strengthening customer relationships and providing a huge competitive advantage in today's fast-paced market.
Personalisation and Excellence Solutions
A common scenario we see with our customers is that there is a well-established production process and administrative work that relies on ERP systems. When business systems are not enough, separate side solutions are often created, for example in Excel. This creates problems in keeping documents up to date in an ever-changing production environment and limits communication to other parts of the organisation. It is also common for one person to sit on all the information and need to spend a lot of time compiling lists and reports in order to maintain some form of transparency with the rest of the business.
With a planning system, all information is readily available and can be shared in the form of dynamic and customised reports. The system also provides the possibility to produce statistics for evaluation or improvement purposes, which, among other things, allows you to work more proactively in your planning process. With less manual work, the production planner has more time to monitor planning, detect bottlenecks, make necessary changes in real time and prevent possible resource shortages in the long term.
The different planning needs of the sectors
There is a certain difference between different sectors and needs related to planning. For example, if you look at bulk producers, they have historically been good at acquiring planning support to optimise their productivity. Here it is often a question of working on the margins and making sure you get the right volumes. Discrete manufacturing operations, on the other hand, have not been as quick to acquire digital tools.
If a manufacturing company needs to improve its production planning, it should start by conducting an internal survey and looking at its working practices. Then focus on the planning process that has the most potential for improvement and put your efforts where it hurts the most. A good start for companies that want to succeed with a planning tool is to begin with a workshop to review the possibilities and limitations. In this way, the best measures for your particular planning process are identified.
Profits of companies with production planning
We have seen clear benefits and improvements in companies that have started using production planning systems. For example, one of our customers has increased its delivery accuracy from 86% to 98%. In that case, it faced challenges with long response times, both in planning and coordination in production and with other departments. Today, they have a good overview of production, they can predict and avoid late deliveries and have created a proactive way of working that is today a great advantage for them and in the long run increases their competitiveness.
