Plan and schedule production activities

The production planning process depends on whether an item is make-to-order or make-to-stock.

• Production planning for make-to-order items: the Batch Planning Worksheet looks at open sales orders for items designated as make-to-order items and presents these items to the user, who can either create a production order for each item or combine several items based on the same formula into a single production order. Equipment planning is provided when creating the production order.

• Production planning for make-to-stock items: the planning process for make-to-stock items normally involves the Quick Planner. The Quick Planner assists the manufacturer in determining production requirements by providing on-hand inventory data as well as pending supply and demand. Demand is typically determined based on open sales orders and existing forecast data entered in the Production Forecast page. The Quick Planner calculates a suggested production stock order based on this information. Once this production order is created, you can open the Batch Planning Worksheet and either create a production order for each order or combine several orders based on the same formula into a single production order. Equipment planning is provided when creating the production order.

Once a production order is scheduled, it can be further sequenced among the other orders and production activities that share the same equipment and production date. Properly sequenced production activities help prevent scheduling conflicts between production orders and ensure that planned activities do not exceed equipment capacity.

A production order may have one or more related pre-process activities, which represent activities that must be performed on materials before they can be consumed in the order. Generate these pre-process activities once a production order has been scheduled.

The manufacturer can also use the daily production planning feature to obtain a more detailed view of scheduled production activities in the near future. You can suggest changes to existing production orders based on inventory availability and equipment capacity, then view the impact of these changes before finalising them in the program.

The following table describes a sequence of activities, with links to the topics that describe them. These activities are listed in the order in which they are generally performed.