Production planning in excel as the main leader of the last 20 years

We could see the production planning in excel as the number one choice or necessary supplement within the last 20 years. It is an easy to use tool, easy to understand and usually you’ve got it already installed in your company’s PC. So why not to use it as a first choice for production planning.

Then the plan looks for example like this:

Production Planning in Excel

Is excel really the best option I should use?

If you have a small company, your production planning is done by one person and you understand all the formulas and consequences, it seems like a pretty good idea. Just grab the demand, put it into the excel, sum it up and distribute it between the production lines and the job is done. Also you can use several constraint formulas which will (should) guard your capacity usage.

I have more production planning teammates

Very common problem which we have been seeing for years is that the production plan should be shared within several team members and dozens of workers and this plan should be updated on a daily basis. And again and again, in never ending cycle.

So then you are facing the problem, which excel sheet is the right one, the current one? And if there is a mistake, is the error in excel or the data or some changes done by somebody unintentionally?

There is a good tool in Google spreadsheets or online Excel (Office 365), however then the speed is a victim of that choice and a lot of consistency and formula checks are still necessary.

I want to share the production plan immediately to the workstations

There are usually meetings organised in the plant in order to validate the current production plan and the results are shared with production staff. However the changes in the plan are often so urgent that you have to update it several times a day. Then you spend a lot of time with lot of people just to update them what and when they should produce.

Alternatives to excel

We tried to gain the best from the long-term experience with production planning in excel and transformed it into something new. Something much faster, much easier to understand and instantly shared within the whole manufacturing plant.

New way of MPS planning (long-term production planning)

MPS planning

In the Productoo long-term planning module you can make the MPS planning within several minutes or several tens of minutes. The system automatically helps you to distribute the Demand between the production lines and optimise the capacity. All is based on the manufacturing cycle-time calculation and the number of staff available to make the production levelling as well.

New way of Daily planning (short-term production planning)

Short term production planning

Just drag & drop the production orders and finite the planning in seconds. When you execute such a change the system keeps an eye on the capacity, staff and scheduling requirements and restrictions.

Instant production plan at the shopfloor

Production planning at the manufacturing shopfloor

The workers are the main people who should know the production planning and what to produce. The Productoo Digital Workstation immediately shows them the production scheduling, working instruction and all the necessary production information. It makes them independent and reliable.