Production planning and control steps are a crucial component to production facilities that want to increase efficiency. Production planning is a must.
Manufacturing facilities have found production to be much more challenging without production planning and control. Although ERP and MRP have made production much more efficient, there is still room for improvement. 
Production planning and control offers capabilities that can aid your manufacturing facility by improving overall production efficiency while also minimizing waste, ultimately allowing your facility to utilize resources to its fullest. Before implementing a production planning and control system, it is essential to analyze the steps associated with the software and visualize the process.
Preparation of a proper production plan is key within production planning and control. Orchestrating a plan allows production to have a schedule to follow, which can further improve the entire process. A production plan can determine:
The production plan is conducted through information about quantity and quality of raw materials, customer orders, and the overall budget. This is how the plan can generate multiple schedules and quickly translate them into labor requirements for machines, workers, or any materials. Overall, the production plan is the foundation for the entire manufacturing process and production planning and control software makes it much simpler.
Once production plans are generated and ready to be executed, routing comes into play. Routing determines the path that raw materials will take through machines, operations, and labor within the factory. This path is located through analysis of operation data and the sequence of operations. This portion of the production planning and control software is extremely advantageous because of its ability to locate alternate paths and schedules that account for maintenance, breakdowns, or any other form of downtime.
The next step within production planning and control is scheduling. This portion of the software pertains mainly to time and when the work will be completed. This is when the production plan is almost completed and ready to be enacted. Scheduling differs from planning by diving into the details of the production process. 
The schedule locates what equipment and labor will complete in an almost exact quantity and time, ultimately enabling a steady flow of production. Once this step is complete, production is ready to begin.
Dispatching is the step in which all the work on paper is then turned into production. This feature of the software makes sure that tools, equipment, and people are prepared, while also ensuring that production is moving according to the instructions. Overall, dispatching is the main function that allows production to flow accordingly while also taking all the factors associated with manufacturing into consideration.
Once dispatching is applied, expediting is the final step within the production control process. This feature conducts analysis on production and keeps track of any inefficiencies and waste that is created and attempts to locate ways to further improve the process. As this process is completed, the entire cycle restarts and production comes closer and closer to reaching maximum efficiency.
Advanced planning and scheduling software offers various benefits and capabilities that can take your production to the next level. Some of the features of advanced planning and scheduling software include the following:
See How PlanetTogether APS Handles Multi-Plant Scheduling and Resource Transfers (Video)
In this video, we show how PlanetTogether APS helps manufacturers manage resource capacity, identify bottlenecks, and run what-if scenarios across lines, work centers, and plants.
Getting the steps of production planning and control right—planning, routing, scheduling, dispatching, and expediting—is essential if you want higher efficiency and less waste. But even with ERP and MRP in place, gaps in these steps can quietly erode profit through late deliveries, overloaded resources, overtime, and excess inventory.
Download our one-page “The Money Is in the Planning” infographic to quickly see how issues in planning and control show up as:
Use it as a checklist with your team to identify where your current production planning and control process may be falling short—and where Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) can help you put those steps into action more efficiently.
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