Production planners and schedulers should use what-if scenarios to evaluate and compare various production schedules and increase production efficiency.
Have you ever wanted to predict what would happen if you changed part of your production schedule? PlanetTogether's What-If Scenarios feature allows you to see the effects of any changes made to the production schedule before they are implemented to allow you to make better business decisions.
What-If Scenarios contain all of the data for the factory model including plants, departments, resources, items, inventories, operations, and financial information. This data can be manually entered or imported from an ERP system.
What-If Scenarios can be used in conjunction with the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) pane to allow better decision making. This allows planners and schedulers to see the impact of various changes made to the production schedule on a number of specific KPIs.
For example, you can see the impact of scheduling maintenance for a machine that is running slower than usual and compare it to adding overtime capacity intervals to meet your production goals.
We work with the what-if scenarios until we find the one that works best for us and then take the new schedule live.
Finally, once the best What-If Scenario is found, it can easily be converted to the Live Scenario with the click of a button. This feature will save you time and energy when making changes to the production schedule to maximize profits and cut costs.
What-If Scenarios are a feature within PlanetTogether’s Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software that allows you to generate hypothetical schedules and locate the most advantageous one that pertains to efficiency, waste elimination, and potential bottlenecks within the operation.
Advanced Planning and Scheduling Software has become a must for modern-day manufacturing operations as customer demand for increased product assortment, fast delivery, and downward cost pressures become prevalent. These systems help planners save time while providing greater agility in updating ever-changing priorities, production schedules, and inventory plans. APS Systems can be quickly integrated with an ERP/MRP software to fill the gaps where these systems lack planning and scheduling flexibility, accuracy, and efficiency.
With PlanetTogether APS you can:
The implementation of an Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) Software will take your manufacturing operations to the next level of production efficiency by taking advantage of the operational data you already possess in your ERP system. APS is a step in the right direction of efficiency and lean manufacturing production enhancement.
In this blog, you saw how what-if scenarios let you simulate adding resources, scheduling maintenance, changing release rules, and more—without disrupting your current plan. A Prominent player in the Medical Devices and Industrial Equipment sector put that approach into practice with PlanetTogether APS, using scenario modeling to move beyond “just keep machines running” and toward customer-driven, data-backed schedules that reduced inventory and improved service.
If you want a real example of what scenario-based planning looks like inside a complex manufacturing environment, the Transforming Production Scheduling in the Medical Devices and Industrial Equipment Industry case study shows how they test multiple schedules, evaluate KPIs, and then take the best scenario live with confidence.
See how a global manufacturer uses what-if scenarios to reduce inventory, improve delivery performance, and align production with real demand.
See how PlanetTogether’s advanced planning and scheduling (APS) software uses what-if scenarios to test changes in capacity, overtime, optimization rules, and maintenance—before you update the live schedule. Learn how planners compare scenarios using KPIs to choose the most profitable, efficient, and on-time production plan.
What-if scenarios are one of the fastest ways to de-risk scheduling decisions. Instead of guessing, PlanetTogether APS lets you copy your current schedule, apply changes—add overtime, modify optimization rules, schedule maintenance, adjust release rules—and instantly see the impact on KPIs like throughput, late jobs, and cost. Once you find the best option, you can convert it to the live schedule with a click.
In a live PlanetTogether demo, we will show how you can:
Bring a copy of your current schedule, and we’ll show how scenario-based planning can improve it—before you change anything in production.
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