Production Software Features to Optimize Facilities & Operations

You’ve settled on the perfect production planning software, and you’re ready to jump into implementation. Though you know the process will take time, you want to do everything possible now so you can see the benefits of your new system as soon as possible. But how can you do it?

The answer is through proper employee software training. When an employee knows how to accurately access and manage your production planning software, you face fewer hiccups with the system in the future.

Software Overview Demonstration

Holistically introduce your employees to your new production planning software. Demonstrate the basic functions of the software assuring that all know how to employ the system at its baseline levels. Encourage an active, tactile learning experience by calling on employees to help illustrate the system’s functions.

Split Your Team Into Factions

After a basic software overview, begin to specialize your team’s training according to department. Oftentimes production planning software will touch sales, customer service, operations management, quoting, engineering, production and inventory control, scheduling, expediting, planning, quality control, operations, maintenance, and shipping and receiving. Assure that there is at least one employee from each department who knows the system well enough to act as a liaison for other departments.

Teach Appropriate Methods for Data Input

Before implementation, you should have sat down with your software provider to craft a sample scheduling model. You should have also determined exactly how your company will feed data to the system on an on constant basis.

We recommend manually entering static data that is lacking in your ERP into the ERP if possible. This includes shop floor machines and work centers. Data that changes frequently, such as inventory balances or production reporting data, can be likely already transferred electronically to the production planning system through some type of an interface.

Once these details are all ironed out, begin training your teams accordingly within their departments.

Create and Adjust Production Plans

After employee roles have been defined, make an effort to get all employees who will be working with the production planning software to be comfortable with effectively running the system on their own. Once they have proven their comfort, they can move into the phases of advanced production planning training.

Employ What-if Scenarios

When employees feel comfortable enough to move into the more advanced levels of training, begin incorporating what-if scenarios to test their ability to respond to different circumstances. You could hypothetically add a new piece of equipment into the mix or extend the length of a product’s floor life. This will allow the employee to feel more relaxed with making large scale scheduling changes.

If training is performed properly, your employees will feel a new sense of ease with your production planning system. However, it is also important that your employees feel they have the ability to ask questions when needed.

Video: 5 Tips for Selecting Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) Software

In this video, you’ll learn five practical tips for selecting Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) software that will actually work for your production environment. The guidance is especially valuable if you plan to roll the system out across multiple departments—sales, customer service, operations, engineering, production, inventory control, and scheduling.

You’ll see what to look for in planning and scheduling tools that:

– Integrate with your ERP/MRP and shop-floor systems to keep data accurate and current

– Support clear production planning and scheduling workflows instead of adding complexity

– Provide intuitive interfaces that make employee software training faster and more effective

– Offer what-if scenario capabilities so planners can safely experiment with new schedules and equipment changes

– Scale with your operations as you add machines, products, or facilities

This video is ideal for operations leaders, production planners, and implementation teams who want to choose APS software that not only looks good in a demo but can be trained, adopted, and used confidently across the organization.

Make Your APS Implementation Pay Off in Planners’ Day-to-Day Work

You have invested in production planning software, and you are ready to implement. The difference between a painful rollout and a successful one comes down to training and adoption—how well your teams understand the system, how data flows from ERP, and how confident planners feel running and adjusting schedules on their own.

Download our “Before & After: Free Up Your Day with APS” infographic to see the impact a well-implemented APS can have on daily operations, and use it to:

• Show employees how their workday changes once they are comfortable with the software
• Reinforce why cross-functional training matters for sales, customer service, engineering, production, inventory control, and scheduling
• Highlight the value of clean data input and strong ERP–APS integration as a foundation for good schedules
• Encourage planners to use what-if scenarios to explore new equipment, routings, and schedule changes without fear
• Build buy-in for your implementation by connecting training time today to a smoother, less stressful tomorrow

Share it with your implementation, training, and operations teams as a quick visual tool to keep everyone focused on the real goal of your production software project: a better, more effective day for people using APS on the shop floor and in the office.