Advanced Planning and Scheduling Software - Utilizing the Best Combination of Tools

When utilizing advanced planning and scheduling software, there are various capabilities and benefits that can improve production tremendously. These benefits include improved delivery performance, profit boost, inventory reduction, waste minimization, and others. In order to experience these benefits, it is important to utilize the best combination of tools. One of the most common and advantageous combinations of scheduling tools include gantt drag and drop and inventory planning.

Gantt Drag and Drop

One of PlanetTogether’s unique features within the software is the gantt drag and drop tool. This feature generates production schedules that can be easily comprehended and interpreted. While the planning process is challenging enough, gantt drag and drop allows you to easily move portions of the schedule around while leaving production unchanged. This accounts for any swift changes within the facility that are needed to ensure a steady flow of production. Some of the benefits of gantt drag and drop include:

• On-time Delivery
• Scheduling Precision
• Overall Process Control
• Cost Effective/Material Planning

Gantt drag and drop is a crucial component within production facilities that enable production to complete mixed resource production tasks. Gantt charts are commonly used in project and production timeline and resource management, where project planning and a multitude of interdependent tasks to be sequenced on one timeline.

Inventory Planning

The inventory planning portion of the software showcases how much inventory is available within a certain time period. Within a set time period, inventory will slowly diminish, ultimately enabling the manufacturer to come up with a solution for that production period. Inventory planning also issues warnings that let the facility know the status of inventory:

• Shortage - Shortage will be highlighted in red and represents when the item in inventory is below safety stock level.
• Below Safety Stock - The item will be highlighted in yellow and informs schedulers when the item is below safety stock.
• OK -  This will be highlighted in green and represents when an item is above safety stock and plentiful enough to handle incoming demand.
• Above Max Inventory - The item is marked as above max inventory in orange and represents an item that is overstocked, creating more cost.

This feature allows manufacturers to have clear insight within inventory and develop a proper plan.