Many manufacturing businesses have two worlds. The ERP holds orders, bills of materials, material and delivery dates. But planning happens elsewhere: on a magnetic board in the hall, on a whiteboard in the foreman’s office or in an Excel list that has grown over time. Only one person reliably knows what is running on which machine today.

That is not negligence. There are reasons for it, and whoever knows them also finds the right route into digital planning.

Why planning ends up next to the ERP

Production planning is the part of a business that depends most on rules of its own. A standard system knows orders and dates. Your business knows more:

  • Changeover sequences. Light colours first, then dark ones. Thin material first, then thick. Choose the wrong order and you lose time on changeovers.
  • Machines with quirks. One line handles the large format, the other does not. One machine needs a particular operator.
  • Staff and shifts. Who can run which machine, who is on which shift, who is on holiday?
  • Material. An order can only start once the material is there. Whether it is in stock is in the ERP. Whether it is already at the machine is nowhere.
  • Rush orders. An important customer calls, and half the plan has to be rearranged.

These rules live in the planners’ heads. The planning modules of many standard systems cover part of them, but rarely the way it really works in the hall. So people plan where they are free to: on the board or in Excel.

What it costs

As long as the planner is there, it works. The problems show up elsewhere:

  • Sales promises a delivery date without knowing how full the machines are.
  • Feedback from the hall arrives on paper slips and is typed in at night, if at all. That is double data entry in the middle of the core process.
  • With every change, someone has to update the board, the list and the ERP at the same time. Usually one of them is forgotten.
  • If the person with the plan in their head is away, planning stops.

What digital production planning needs

The orders from the ERP

Orders, quantities, dates and bills of materials are already in the ERP. Planning should take them from there, through an interface where possible, instead of entering them a second time. What that takes is explained in What is an interface.

Capacities and rules

Machines, shifts, qualifications, changeover sequences: your planners’ rules belong in the application. Not as rigid automation, but as help. The planning suggests and warns, the planner decides.

Material in view

Before an order is scheduled, it should be visible whether the material is available. Where material is booked by scanner in the warehouse, as described in the guide Barcodes and scanners in the warehouse, this information becomes reliable.

Feedback from the hall

Started, interrupted, finished, scrap: feedback should be recorded where the work happens, at a terminal by the machine or on a tablet. Only then does the plan show what is really going on, not what was planned.

Changes without chaos

A rush order comes in, a machine breaks down. Planning has to show which orders shift as a result and which delivery dates are at risk. This is the moment where digital planning makes the biggest difference.

One plan for everyone

Sales, foremen, warehouse and management see the same state. Each sees only what they need, but from the same source.

Standard module or an application of your own

Many ERP systems offer a planning module. Check it first. If your planning follows the usual rules, the module is often the simplest route.

An application of your own beside the ERP pays off when your planning depends on rules the module does not know, when the planners set it aside after a trial and go back to the board, or when feedback from the hall has to be simple enough to work with gloves on. The ERP stays the place for orders, material and accounts. Planning takes what it needs from there and reports back what is finished. How to weigh the two routes in principle is described in the guide Custom or off-the-shelf software. We usually develop such applications on ElbDesk, the foundation we build on.

How to start

  1. Watch how planning works today. Sit next to the planner and have the board explained. Write down every rule, including the ones “everyone just knows”.
  2. Choose one area. One group of machines, one hall, one production stage. Not the whole of production at once.
  3. Work with real orders. Test the planning with this week’s orders, not with sample data. Only then does it show whether the rules are right.
  4. Involve the hall early. Feedback has to be easy for the people at the machine. If it is cumbersome, it will not happen.
  5. Take down the board only once the plan is right. Planning in parallel for a while is not a step back, it is the test.

Typical mistakes

  • Automating every rule at once. A planning tool that decides everything on its own gets bypassed by the planners. Better: suggest, warn and leave the decision with people.
  • Planning without the hall. Without feedback from the machine, the digital plan is just a nicer board.
  • Not cleaning up the data in the ERP. Wrong bills of materials or outdated routings make any planning useless. More in the guide Master data in one place.
  • Talking only to management. Whoever plans every day knows where it snags. That person belongs in from the start.

Whether the planning next to your ERP needs an extension or whether there is more behind it, our system check assesses in eight questions.