5 Operational Performance Objectives in Manufacturing | PlanetTogether

Within a business or manufacturing operation, you may have a situation that pertains to your net income increasing but your operating expenses are increasing as well.

You could also have your gross profit stay the same, every year, but your operation expenses are steadily increasing as well. Both of these scenarios are not necessarily good, and they may be easily missed by focusing only on the gross and net incomes of a business. This is where operational performance comes into play within your manufacturing operation.

Objectives of Operational Performance  

Operational performance objectives are areas of performance that a company tries to improve, in a bid to meet corporate strategy. After defining corporate strategy, a company will identify the relevant operational performance objectives to measure and configure the environment, to enable the objectives to be accomplished. It is important to understand the objectives of operational performance within a manufacturing operation in order to boost production efficiency within your overall operation. These objectives of operational performance include the objectives such as speed, quality, costs, flexibility and dependability, which are explained below:

• Speed: Reduce lead time and increase throughput

  The objective of speeds measure how quickly a company can deliver products and generates sales quotes. This objective will be concerned issues such as the time that it takes to manufacture and process one or more production of the company or the amount of time that it takes to research a new product and develop it. Speed is extremely important within manufacturing operations and is a clear indicator of how efficient your operation is.
  
  

• Flexibility: Handle mix changes with fewer disruptions

  Flexible operations are operations that pertains to configuring product lines to deal with various requirements and to also adjust these product lines quickly to new requirements. Flexibility lies closely to the speed objective, in which a company should be able to produce various quality products while also adapting to the operations in order to adequately suit different market conditions.
  
  

• Quality: Prevent defects and stabilize processes

  Quantity usually measures how well a product conforms to specifications. While this is important, it is much more than that, and the quality of the product is also extremely important. Having a desirable product that is reliable, durable, can easily be serviced, performs well, and your customers believe in it is definitely a substantial component within the objectives of performance. All of these are relevant measures of quality.
  
  

• Cost: Lower overtime, expediting, and inventory

  Cost variation pertains to the objective of how much variation there is in the unit cost of a product as measured by changes in a variety of factors. These factors include volume and the variety of the products. Products that feature a wide variety of features tend to sport lower volumes and higher unit costs. This affects the price of the product as well as the costs of producing it, and the profits to be obtained from the product.
  
  

• Dependability: Improve on-time delivery and schedule reliability

  Dependability is a huge component within operations and operational objectives. Dependability is an operational performance objective that measure how dependable the company is when it comes to timely delivery of product to customers in accordance with planned prices and costs. A product’s ability to function in an intended way over a period of time is also a measure of dependability.

A software that can aid your day to day operations within a production facility is PlanetTogether’s Advanced Planning and Scheduling Software (APS). Advanced Planning and scheduling software is a visual scheduling system that allows you to have thorough visibility into your production process and manipulate areas of production that are in need of efficiency enhancement. PlanetTogether’s Advanced Planning and Scheduling Software (APS) is a must for modern day manufacturers that are seeking to take their operation to the next level in terms of operationally efficiency, cost reduction, waste elimination, and more. APS software can easily be integrated into manufacturing operations around the globe.

Decision Framework: Which Objective Should You Improve First?

Use this quick triage to choose your starting point:

Late orders or missed ship dates?

Start with Dependability + Speed → finite capacity planning and scheduling

Too much expediting, overtime, or excess inventory?

Start with Cost → align priorities + capacity via APS:

Scrap, rework, or unstable processes?

Start with Quality → stabilize the constraint and protect quality gates.

Frequent mix changes, rush orders, short runs?

Start with Flexibility → ensure ERP/MRP plans reflect constraints via integrations:

Not sure where to start?

Begin with on-time delivery and throughput (most tied torevenue).

How APS SupportsOperational Performance (Finite Capacity Scheduling)

Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software has become a must for modern-day manufacturing operations due to customer demand for increased product mix and fast delivery, combined with downward cost pressures. APS can be quickly integrated with an ERP/MRP software to fill gaps where these systems lack planning and scheduling flexibility and accuracy. Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) helps planners save time while providing greater agility in updating ever-changing priorities, production schedules, and inventory plans.

• Create optimized schedules balancing production efficiency and delivery performance
• Maximize output on bottleneck resources to increase revenue
• Synchronize supply with demand to reduce inventories
• Provide company-wide visibility to capacity
• Enable scenario data-driven decision making

Implementation of Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS)software will take your manufacturing operations to the next level of production efficiency, taking advantage of the operational data you already have in your ERP.

Manufacturing Capacity Planning with APS (Finite Scheduling)

This video walks through how manufacturers can use finite capacity scheduling to align demand, labor, and equipment availability—so production plans reflect what your shop can actually run (not just what the spreadsheet says should run).

You’ll see how Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) supports practical capacity planning by identifying constraints, balancing loads across work centers, and improving schedule stability as priorities change. This is especially useful for production planners, schedulers, and operations leaders trying to reduce late orders, overtime, and firefighting.

For IT/ERP owners, the video also connects capacity planning tobetter system-driven execution—using APS to complement ERP/MRP data withreal-world sequencing, setup logic, and shop-floor constraints so plans aremore accurate and actionable.

Stop Losing Profit to Poor Planning and Hidden Capacity Loss

Even strong demand can’t translate into results when planning isreactive. Missed sequencing opportunities, unplanned changeovers, anddisconnected maintenance plans quietly create effective capacity loss,longer lead times, and expensive recovery behaviors like overtime andexpediting.

Download our “Money Is in the Planning” infographic to see wheremanufacturing operations typically lose margin when planning and scheduling aremanaged manually—and how an APS-driven approach helps teams protect throughput,delivery performance, and cost control.

PlanetTogether APS helps manufacturers turn capacity planning into arepeatable process: create feasible schedules, manage bottlenecks proactively,and adapt quickly when demand or constraints shift—without starting over everytime.

In the infographic, you’ll learn how poor planning drives:

• Lost sales from late deliveries and long lead times
• Effective capacity loss from inefficient sequencing, changeovers, and cleanouts
• Overtime and “catch-up” costs during bottleneck periods
• Reduced output from maintenance that isn’t planned with production
• Excess inventory carrying costs and expensive expedited shipping

Operational Performance Objectives FAQ

Q: What are operational performance objectives?

A: Operational performance objectives are the outcomes operations teams improve to support strategy—typically speed, quality, cost, flexibility, and dependability. Theytranslate business goals into shop-floor priorities that can be measured,managed, and improved through planning, scheduling, and execution.

Q: What’s the difference between operational objectives and KPIs?

A: Objectives are what you’re trying to improve (e.g., dependability). KPIs are how you measure progress (e.g., OTIF, schedule adherence, lead time, scrap rate). KPIs should map directly to one objective so teams don’t optimize conflicting metrics.

Q: Which operational objective should manufacturers prioritize first?

A: Start with the objective causing the most business pain. If you’re missing ship dates, prioritize dependability. If you’re fighting overtime and expediting, prioritize cost. If customers complain about defects, prioritize quality. Then improve the constraints (capacity, materials, changeovers) driving that outcome.

Q: How do you improve speed without sacrificing quality?

A: Improve speed by removing constraint friction—not by rushing. Reduce changeover time, smooth the schedule at bottlenecks, and protect quality gates. When schedules reflect true capacity and sequence rules, teams avoid last‑minute swaps that create both delays and defects.

Q: How does finite capacity scheduling help operational performance?

A: Finite-capacity scheduling turns objectives into executable plans by sequencing work within real constraints (labor, machines, changeovers, downtime, materials). That improves on-time delivery, stabilizes throughput, and reduces firefighting—supporting speed, dependability, and cost simultaneously.

See APS Improve On‑Time Delivery and Throughput

Ready to turn speed, dependability, and cost targets intoan executable schedule? Request a PlanetTogether APS demo.