In modern manufacturing, nothing is certain except that everything changes. While many positions within an organization may have the same titles they did historically, the tasks and processes have changed completely. That pace is only getting faster, prompting a need for more agile, adaptive ERP solutions. Here’s a look at how the role of the production planner has changed over time, and why traditional ERP is no longer good enough.

Basic Responsibilities

Production planners are charged with determining the products to be run throughout the manufacturing operation, and the specific sequence of the work to be performed. They often have the responsibility of determining lot sizes, and they may be able to select alternate routings that help to alleviate bottlenecks or delays. Most production planners manage one or more product lines, or they may be responsible for scheduling in a specific department or work center. In either case, the job requires the ability to collaborate with other planners who may be vying for shared resources and equipment. Communication with shop floor supervisors and managers is critical, and the ability to react quickly to changes caused by unplanned downtime or customer requirements is another key.

Let’s compare recent production methodologies.

Historical Methodologies

If we look back as far as the Industrial Revolution, production planning looked quite different. There was little visibility into available inventory to complete work orders, so they were “kitted” days or weeks in advance and staged to ensure certain components were available. Schedules were originally created manually and communicated and tracked using either cardboard or magnetic strips. Job records were moved through visible production schedules by moving the strips to different operations or work centers in response to daily work reporting—paper forms filled out the day before by shop floor personnel. Later, spreadsheets became a common communication method, but walking around the shop floor and peering at the work in queue at work centers was the best way to keep a handle on production status.

Dispatch lists were often handwritten or were simply communicated by the order in which work order routings were stacked on the supervisor’s desk. 

Response to unplanned downtime often required scrambling to find another work order to fill the gap, and there was little ability to determine how a specific work order affected customer orders or even revenue targets.

The biggest problems were cumbersome manual processes that were prone to frequent errors at every step, lack of visibility, and few or no planning tools. Planners for different product lines or work centers might use different scheduling and communication methods, depending on what worked best for them and their stakeholders. A typical production planner of the time could reasonably handle 100-300 work orders a month.

Methodologies Using Traditional ERP

The advent of enterprise resource planning (ERP) made the production planner’s job much simpler. Work orders were prioritized by their required date, and schedules and dispatch lists were generated and either printed or visible on screens.

Barcoding and other data collection methods made information available in near real time, so it was possible for planners to get a reasonably accurate assessment of shop floor status from their desks, although checking status by walking around was still a common practice.

MRP made it easier to order required materials on time, and most ERP systems had the ability to calculate whether components were available for an order without having to physically pull components.

The job still required the ability to think fast in response to unplanned downtime, damaged tooling, or inaccurate inventory records. The production planner still had to be an excellent communicator, but even then, they had little to no visibility into which customers would be affected by a particular work order.

The traditional push system of production scheduling gave way to pull systems, where work centers requested work or materials as required, which simplified the detailed scheduling job. 

Because the ERP systems in use had little ability to function with different processes by user, in most companies, all planners were required to use the same processes. There were some slight variations such as using work orders versus schedules, kitting versus backflushing components, and printed versus on-screen schedules, but most tasks followed the same flow for everybody in a role.

Methodologies Using Adaptive ERP

While ERP solutions will still come with built-in best practice business processes, individual users within a role can make changes to suit their own workstyles and responsibilities. For production planners, this may mean using an adaptive UX that supports personalization of screens and processes for each user and activity.

With an adaptive ERP, if a planner only works with one product line or one work center, they may choose to have it set as a default so they don’t have to enter or select it every time—or even set it up so the field doesn’t even appear on their screens.

They may set up personalized queries that automatically include their products, or that show only orders sitting at bottlenecked operations so they can take steps to ensure customer deliveries happen on time.

Further, an adaptive ERP solution will be as much a platform as it is a complete system, so organizations undergoing digital transformation can create unique processes tailored exactly to their needs while also supporting their differentiators—without having to touch the inline system code.

Operating in the cloud, adaptive ERP solutions free up the in-house IT team to focus on creating these unique processes that simplify and improve customer and user experiences.

What Methodology Do You Follow?

Most manufacturers understand that their business must change and undergo a digital transformation to stay competitive, but it’s hard to create something without the proper tools. It’s important for the production planner to ensure their product lines and work centers are operating smoothly using effective scheduling and communication methods. Your existing ERP solution may be cutting it, but it may also be worth exploring a more adaptive ERP.