Strategic management is a complex function that requires timely, trusted data to respond nimbly to ever-changing situations.
The aim of any good manager is to identify and meet goals that benefit the company as a whole. This is especially important in the manufacturing industry, where one change in process can affect an entire operation. In strategic management—the planning, monitoring, analysis and assessment of all aspects of an organization on a continuing basis—there are two essential components:
A myriad of details from analytic insight reports guide the formulation of a strategy that helps management make intelligent decisions. Implementation of the finalized strategy becomes even more complicated, as it requires a large measure of adaptability to changing external forces as well as internal resources. As firms have grown more customer-focused, the need for adaptation has led to a reliance on reliable information on which to base decisions. Companies that make a plan and stick to it rigidly will soon find that market forces and customers are no longer on their side.
Planning concepts and theories, like lean manufacturing, have added another dimension to the practice of strategic management, as well. Companies do not store inventory, but rather produce them in response to specific customer orders. Lean manufacturing allows a firm to adapt to seasonal factors and market cycles. It also eliminates waste and excess-inventory situations that can cost a company in the long run. However, a manager needs modern tools to handle the mass of data and moving parts involved in any organization with multiple departments, plants, products and customers.
Fortunately, planning and scheduling tools address the increasingly complex world of strategic management. Advanced platforms can collect and analyze operations data to suggest manufacturing plans (and project their outcomes) in real-time. Communication between business functions becomes collaborative, rather than linear, because these results can be made available to all managing players. Decisions to alter a schedule become more intelligent and correct because all the data is right there where it is needed, not hidden in an Excel worksheet, or in a report that won't be published until next week.
From top to bottom, employing strategic management bonded with a scheduling tool will assist an organization in making better production decisions, keeping customers satisfied, and accomplishing its overall goals.
In this video, you’ll learn five practical tips for selecting planning and scheduling software that supports your strategic management goals—not just day-to-day firefighting. See how the right Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) platform gives managers real-time data, what-if scenarios, and aligned production schedules to execute strategy across plants, products, and customers.
We cover how to evaluate APS tools on their ability to integrate with your ERP/MRP, model real-world constraints, support multi-plant and multi-product planning, and provide clear, visual schedules that improve communication between management, planners, and the shop floor. You’ll also see why spreadsheet-based planning and batch reports can’t keep up with today’s fast-changing market cycles, and how modern planning & scheduling tools enable continuous planning, monitoring, analysis, and course correction.
This video is ideal for operations leaders, supply chain managers, and executives who are comparing planning & scheduling solutions and want technology that truly supports strategy formulation and execution, not just another point tool.
Strategic management only works when it reaches the shop floor. You can define objectives, policies, and KPIs—but if your planning and scheduling tools still live in spreadsheets and delayed reports, decisions lag behind reality. Modern planning and scheduling platforms pull real-time operations data together so managers can reschedule intelligently, adapt to change, and keep strategy aligned with day-to-day production.
Download our one-page “The Money Is in the Planning” infographic to see how advanced planning and scheduling can help you:
Share it with your leadership and operations teams as a quick visual guide to where planning and scheduling tools can make the biggest difference in executing your strategy.
Would you like to learn about the 7 fundamental wastes of lean manufacturing? Look no further. Here's the second blog in our series covering them.
When used in conjunction with other lean manufacturing tools, Just-in-Time produces items only as they are needed to eliminate waste of all types in
Lean cuts waste but struggles with disruptions. Explore what’s next for sustainable lean manufacturing supported by advanced scheduling.