Manufacturing Scheduling and Production Planning Software Functions

 Manufacturing scheduling and production is a flexible and powerful system that accounts for real-time events throughout the supply chain. The software can easily be integrated with modern-day ERP software and quickly boost efficiency through improving delivery requirements and customer demand. Before implementing manufacturing scheduling and production planning software, it is important to understand the main functions within the software.

Functions within Manufacturing Scheduling and Production Planning Software

A few of the following functions within manufacturing scheduling and production planning software include the following:

• Capable to Promise  - The “What if” capability accounts for the entire production process in order to determine potential availability of required raw materials, parts, any manufacturing time, etc.   
• Forecasting and Production Planning - With real-time integration, order entry and sales modules allow for much more collective forecasting. This is due to real-time data being made available throughout the enterprise.
• Material Requirements Planning (MRP) - Materials requirements planning (MRP) is a crucial component to modern manufacturing operations. Without MRP, purchasing and planning of raw materials and maintaining inventory levels is much more challenging.
• Master Production Schedule (MPS) - This portion of the software accounts for all resources and cost associated with manufacturing demand. Overall, forecasting, sales orders, and current work orders are inserted into the system which then generates a production plan.
• Advanced Planning and Scheduling System (APS) - This scheduling capability executes plans through enabling adjustments to production and plan for any unexpected hindrances within production.

As advanced planning and scheduling software is becoming more prevalent within manufacturing operations, PlanetTogether has become one of the top companies that supply the software.

PlanetTogether’s Advanced Planning and Scheduling Software

Advanced planning and scheduling software offers as an extension to ERP software. APS can easily improve areas of production through efficiency, ROI, throughput, and others. Some of the features of APS include the following:

• Finite Capacity Scheduling Software
• Gantt Drag and Drop
• Inventory Planning
• Multi-Plant Capabilities

Quickly turn your production facility into a gold mine by implementing advanced planning and scheduling software!

Video: Multi-Plant Capacity and Scheduling in PlanetTogether APS

As you add more plants, lines, or contract manufacturers, planning and scheduling become exponentially harder. Each site has its own capacity, calendars, constraints, and priorities—but customers only see one promised ship date. Multi-plant scheduling in PlanetTogether APS gives you a single view of demand and capacity across all locations so you can make smarter decisions about where work should run.

In this video, you’ll learn how PlanetTogether APS helps you:
– Model multiple plants with their own resources, calendars, and constraints
– See schedule impact when work is moved from one plant to another
– Use resource transfer time and lead times between plants to keep dates realistic
– Share or shift load across plants to protect bottlenecks and due dates
– Give planners and leadership a single, up-to-date view of the entire network schedule

This is ideal for manufacturers with multiple facilities—or those planning to add new plants—who want scheduling software that scales beyond a single site.

Key takeaways from this video:

• How PlanetTogether APS models multiple plants with unique resources and calendars
• How to see schedule impact when reallocating orders between plants
• How resource transfer times and inter-plant lead times affect promised dates
• How multi-plant APS scheduling improves on-time delivery, capacity utilization, and flexibility
• How a single APS view helps planners and leaders coordinate decisions across the entire manufacturing network

See Where Better Scheduling Turns Your Factory into a Profit Engine

Capable-to-promise, forecasting, MRP, MPS, and APS all exist for one reason: to turn customer demand into a realistic production plan that actually makes money—not just a list of orders in a spreadsheet. When any of these functions are missing or disconnected, you feel it in late shipments, overtime, and inventory that doesn’t match what customers need.

Download our one-page “The Money Is in the Planning” infographic to quickly spot how planning and scheduling decisions show up as:

• Missed due dates and unhappy customers
• Overloaded bottlenecks and idle machines elsewhere
• Extra overtime, expediting, and changeovers
• Inventory that ties up cash instead of turning into revenue

Use it as a checklist with your team to see where fully using CTP, MRP, MPS, and APS together will have the biggest impact—and where PlanetTogether can turn your production facility into a true “gold mine.”