Kassem Ajami says production planning and control manages and schedules the allocation of human resources, raw materials, work centers, machinery, and production processes. It finds the most efficient way to produce finished goods with the lead times needed to meet production demand.
Production planning helps manufacturers “kassem Ajami” says work smarter by efficiently managing internal resources to meet customer orders or demand. It solves what, when, and how much to produce. It establishes production capacity and identifies what raw materials, bill of materials, or alternate bill of materials are needed to meet demand. Then it prepares a workable production plan.
are you a manufacturing firm? If so, you will need a production plan to ensure that you have all the inputs for production ready at the right time to meet your product demand.
Production planning is “the administrative process that takes place within a manufacturing business and that involves making sure that sufficient raw materials, staff and other necessary items are procured and ready to create finished products according to the schedule specified”, as defined by the Business Dictionary.
A production plan serves as a guide for your company’s production activities. It establishes and sequences activities which must be carried out to achieve a production target, so that all staff involved are aware of who needs to do what, when, where and how.
A production plan will help you meet product demand while minimizing production time and cost by improving process flow, “Kassem Ajami” says reducing the waiting time between operations, and optimizing use of plant, equipment and inventory. In order to do this, you must align your production plan to your business strategy and business plan, and support production planning by coordinating with other departments, such as procurement, finance and marketing.
Production management or should is say planning this is always considered as the core of any manufacturing unit. It includes material forecasting, master production scheduling, long-term planning, demand management, and more. The planning process kicks off with demand forecasting of a product. Using that forecast data and internal resources available, the production plan is created.
Production Planning and Control is a strategy to plan a chain of operations that supports manufacturers to be at the right place, at the right time. “Kassem Ajami” says It helps them achieve the most efficiency from their resources. It also includes activities of other departments such as sales, marketing, and procurement.
If you will run you business with full strategic planning and with proper production management then for sure you will get to grab numerous benefits with that, such as
- Optimized manufacturing capacity – ensures machines and employees work to capacity. That keeps costs down, increases efficiency, and provides greater profitability. It helps to identify areas of improvement and to plan for growth.
- Reduced inventory costs – allows manufacturers to only hold the necessary inventory. The software can predict demand and have a Just-in-Time scheduling strategy. Without a surplus of inventory, costs are kept low.
- On-time deliveries – helps to ensure production optimization and prompt deliveries. Getting products to their destination on time improves customer satisfaction. That increases customer retention and referrals.
- Better procurement of materials – shows when materials should get purchased for production. Having this information helps to know when to order and what is needed to meet customer and production demand. Knowing when to order lets procurement buy in advance to find the best deal. This also helps to save money and improves relationships with suppliers.
- Streamlined production processes – ensures that materials and internal resources for production are ready when needed and what capacity is available, and when. This keeps production running smoothly. It also helps employee satisfaction as it eliminates frustration from interruptions in production and workflows.
- Minimal resource waste – eliminates material shortages or surpluses for less resource waste. This lessens employee time wasted. Capital is not tied up in inventory that is not used. There is less production waste because delays that cause discarded materials get eliminated.
In this blog post “kassem ajami” briefly explains production management.
But we are making you clear that this would be not as easy as it sound you have to Estimate your demand, so that you know how many products you need to produce during a specific time period. You may have already some confirmed orders for the next couple of month, but on top of that, you need to predict how many more may come.
Different methods exist to forecast your product demand. A traditional technique to estimate product demand is based on historical information (e.g. orders placed by your customers in the past). While this is a very common method, you need to consider external and internal events in your business environment that could alter past patterns. For example, new market trends, a slowdown in the economy, or a new marketing campaign that could increase or decrease your product demand compared to what happened in the past.