A robust production planning system helps businesses to navigate complex operations. This helps to build realistic production schedules and ensures production processes are running smoothly, at all times. The creation of products and services is constantly evolving and getting more extensive and varied. And as a result, the manufacturing industry keeps getting more competitive and therefore requires a production planning system.
There are multiple variables you need to keep an eye on - be it the planning of material requirements, supply chain management, and inventory control.
What Is Production Planning System?
A production planning system (PPS) is a software or a tool that helps companies with their operational control, production planning, and production monitoring. This system is designed to help the user keep an eye on all things concerning production control and production planning system and provide data that can be used to optimize these systems further.
This software helps people across departments such as production, purchasing, and sales. It helps each of them make better-informed decisions by analyzing each of the processes involved.
The requirement for digital planning tools has been growing for a long time. And in today's market which is full of companies constantly increasing their product ranges and updating their manufacturing processes, the level of complexity is constantly increasing. As a result, businesses are always looking for ways in which to improve their production planning system or process. This is a definitive way to ensure ongoing competitiveness from the business side.
What Are the Objectives of Production Planning System?
A production planning system is very helpful for companies of all shapes and sizes. So whether you're an SME or a large corporation, a production planning system gives you full control over each of the steps in the planning process.
A few objectives of implementing a solid production planning system in your organization are:
Make optimal use of resources:
By having control of each step of the production process along with access to data to monitor and improve existing processes, a production planning system greatly helps your organization reduce wastage and make optimal use of your resources. This is a great way to increase the overall efficiency of your business and ensure streamlined processes.
Reduce lead times:
The implementation of a production planning system greatly helps in the reduction of lead times when it comes to the entire production side of your business. This means faster turnaround times, which in turn equals more production and therefore more sales and revenue.
Meet production deadlines & delivery reliability:
Another objective that having a production planning process serves is meeting production deadlines and improving delivery reliability. This is extremely important as it directly affects customer satisfaction which is probably the most important factor when it comes to your business success.
Functions of Production Planning System
The importance of production management emerges when businesses need to basically carry out five major functions. Let's look at them below:
Production program planning:
Within the realm of program planning within a production planning system, you need to decide which products and services you want to provide to your customers in the future. For example, for an industrial company, production program planning would mean picking the type and the quantity of the product line you wish to sell.
Material requirements planning:
In this step of the production planning system, you're meant to decide the lot size, the date of production, production capacity, and production sequence, and create detailed schedules for each of them. This is a crucial step as it basically decides your entire product line on which your business' sales depend.
Time & capacity planning:
During the time and capacity planning stage, you need to go over all the data that you have at your disposal. This is important to cement the sequence of the individual steps of the production process in order to determine the earliest date of completion for each step.
Estimation of Delivery Dates:
Capacity planning allows you to schedule the available capacities over a duration of time based on which delivery dates can be estimated. This is another vital piece of the puzzle as your delivery date estimation and reliability all are dependent on this step. And wrongful delivery dates negatively affect customer satisfaction which can be hugely detrimental to your overall business.
Order release:
During the order release part of the production planning and control system, you take all your orders that were previously roughly scheduled and you precisely schedule each one of them. You basically pick a precise production date and ensure the team sticks to that.
Order monitoring:
This is the final step of the production planning system and where you're required to constantly monitor whether the production in terms of quantity is going as per schedule without compromise in quality. Your guidebook to keep a check on this is all the production data that will keep you in the loop on the current state of production. This same data can also be used for other purposes such as payroll, accounting, costing, and quality control.
Benefits of Production Planning System
Having a robust production planning system is very helpful for companies of all sizes. A few advantages of having your manufacturing processes in place are:
Cost control:
Having a production planning system in place plays a large role in controlling the overall cost of your manufacturing process. This is because the software is constantly trying to further optimize all your processes.
Increased efficiency:
Implementing a solid production planning system will immediately improve the overall efficiency of your entire manufacturing process. That's why more and more companies are turning to smart software solutions to help them further optimize their production planning system.
Reduction of stocks:
An effective production planning system helps optimize all your manufacturing processes which lead to the reduction of stocks and overall wastage when it comes to your products.
Reduction in production lead time:
By optimizing every step of your manufacturing process, this system helps decrease the overall production lead time which means you can produce more at a quicker pace.
Efficient functioning of all production and planning processes:
Basically, having a robust production planning system helps improve the overall efficiency of all your production and planning processes. This enables a reduction in cost and error as well as faster production and delivery time.
What Is the Difference Between Production Planning System and ERP?
A production planning system is designed to help the user keep an eye on all things concerning production control and production planning and provide data that can be used to further optimize these systems. This software helps people across departments such as production, purchasing, and sales and helps them make better-informed decisions by analyzing each of the processes.
An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is a type of software that organizations use in order to manage all their day-to-day activities such as accounting, procurement, [production management] (/blogs/production-planning-system), project management, inventory, supply chain operations, and risk management and compliance.
An ERP helps organizations plan, budget, predict, and report on the overall financial results of their business. They also ensure all your business processes are completely transparent by tracking all aspects of your production, logistics, and financials.
To sum it up, a production planning system is a subset of an ERP. The production and manufacturing processes are one of the many things an ERP monitors and optimizes.
How Much Does a Production Planning System Cost?
There are several production planning systems out there for you to choose from. Each with advantages and certain limitations that come along with it.
If you're an Indian SME business looking to pick a system that's right for you, we suggest you try TranZact. It will cost you an estimate of Rs. 6499/- a month plus GST (price is subject to change) and will help you improve and optimize the following parts of your process:
- Quotation tracking
- Sales and purchase
- Inventory
- Production
- Reporting
- Payments
- Buyers and suppliers
- Reminders and notifications
- Integration
- Onboarding and support
The TranZact production planning system is best suited for businesses that come within small and medium scales. So, if this sounds like a plan that suits you and your business, try TranZact with the free trial and get started today.
How to Choose the Best Production Planning System?
When you are looking out into the market for the best production planning systems, there are a few key factors you should consider. These factors are important and will be the difference between a successful implementation and otherwise.
User-friendliness:
It is crucial that the production planning system you implement is not difficult to work with. There's no use in having a system your team is not able to get on board with and adapt to seamlessly.
Cost-effectiveness:
Depending on the scale of your operations, you should choose a production planning system that suits the size of your business. Avoid paying for features and functionalities you do not need.
Easy integration capabilities:
The production planning system you select should have the ability to integrate easily with other systems in your business. This will ensure that adoption is high within your team.
Reliable customer support:
Every system has some complexities and unique features that you may need help with activating. It is essential that you choose a production planning system that has dedicated customer support providing timely intervention and support when needed.
TranZact - Best Production Planning System
Being one of the best production planning software systems around, TranZact provides you with data-driven insights that will help you compare the quantities of raw materials that's been estimated to be used and how much actually ends up being used.
Its comprehensive multilevel BOM functionalities assist production managers across every step of the production process from planning to execution on a centralized platform.
In order to further streamline production planning in manufacturing, it enables easy tracking of all production and work orders so that every stakeholder is well aware of the status of each order. Having all these functionalities at your disposal helps you to maximize production capacity and reduce operating costs.
Having a Robust Production Planning System Is Important
Get a production planning system in place today and watch your business maximize its manufacturing productivity while reducing overall costs. You can get real-time visibility on every step of the manufacturing process - be it inventory tracking, monitoring the production floor, and fulfilling orders. By implementing a solid production planning system, your business will not only save on overall costs but will also see a great jump in efficiency which will in turn lead to greater customer satisfaction.
FAQs on Production Planning System
1. What is production planning and control?
Production planning system and control schedules and oversees the allocation of human resources, raw materials, machinery, and production processes. It does so in order to find the most efficient ways to produce finished products within the predetermined lead time.
2. What are the types of production planning and control systems?
There are five types of production planning and control systems. They are:
- Job-Based Planning
- Batch Method
- Flow Method
- Mass Production Method
- Process Manufacturing Method
3. Why is production planning important?
Production planning systems are important because they help your business with the following:
- Cost control
- Increased efficiency
- Reduction of stocks
- Reduction in production lead time
- Efficient functioning of all production and planning processes
- Integration
- Demand forecasting
- Identification of defects
