Planning is the key process in manufacturing and an efficient planning can do wonders for the manufacturer or the organization. Planning plays a crucial role in cases of setbacks when the company needs a more organized approach to solve the problem and simultaneously pushing the production process in the forward direction. Every other manufacturer designs its own production plan and builds it on its own certain driving factors. However, every production plan has one thing six common factors that determine their effectiveness. In this blog, we will be covering the six basic Fundamentals of Production Planning in detail.

• Customer Demand

Customer demand is the most basic principle of production planning. The manufacturer must be aware of the quantity that needs to be manufactured for the customer before planning the production process. Moreover, the production and supply to the customer should be at reasonable rates. The whole concept of production planning is to give the manufacturer an idea about the multiple varying situations that may arise during production so that he can efficiently comply with them.

• Materials

Raw material forms the platform for any production process. A minimum amount of raw materials required for the production process should be kept in inventory to ensure smooth and continuous movement of production processes. Moreover, having the required amount of raw materials inventory will also help the manufacturer in saving costs which he might end up spending on excess raw materials.

• Equipments

Equipments form the backbone of the production processes and play a quintessential role in keeping the production on schedule. Having an equipment force with optimum running and working capacity can help the manufacturer in avoiding breakdowns related to machinery. Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) plays a key here by determining the availability, performance, and quality of the machinery.

• Manpower

Manpower planning helps the manufacturer in directing the human efforts towards the production process along with the machinery force. Machines may do their work, but it is the human labour force that adds value to the entire production process by managing the machinery and other aspects of the production process. Moreover, the reason why manpower planning is important is because it will help the manufacturer decide various factors like the amount of workforce required. If overtime is needed or not, and to assort to various variations that might occur during the production process.

• Processes

A production plan is also made to keep the processes intact and undisturbed. It makes sure that new processes do not impact the ongoing processes that are being used to deliver outputs for various mechanisms. Moreover, planning processes also helps in setting up the background for new operations to start in a frisk rather than complying with it in a whole new order.

• Controls

Controls refer to the various platforms that are used to control and identify defects and obstacles that might need to be changed. It also helps in standardizing the product and production processes for better outputs and exceptional deliveries. It also assists the production management team to efficiently implement processes to rectify the problems impacting a healthy production process.

Production planning is undoubtedly the most important aspect of any production processes. One can also call it the ‘mother’ of any production process since it creates a more suitable environment for the production.

Team Faber Infinite Creative Solutions have been supporting its clients in creating and designing production plans to avoid the unwanted obstacles and consequent losses. We have helped hundreds of clients in almost all industries across geographies in benefitting from production plans. For more information, contact us at consulting@faberinfinite.com

Written and compiled by Faber Kishlay & Faber Mayuri.

Check other consulting services on Faber Infinite:
Operational Excellence Consulting | Strategic Excellence Consulting | Design Thinking & Excellence Consulting