Can our ERP not do this already?
Many ERPs include planning modules, and if yours produces a schedule your planners follow, you do not need us. The common problem is that ERP planning assumes infinite capacity or models constraints too coarsely, so the output is not feasible and a spreadsheet takes over. Before proposing anything we look at what your ERP produces and why it is not being used, because sometimes the answer is a configuration and data problem rather than a new system.
Do we need optimisation or just a feasible schedule?
Most plants need feasibility first, and a meaningful number need nothing more. A schedule respecting every real constraint, with sensible changeover grouping, captures much of the available benefit. Sophisticated optimisation adds value where sequence effects are large and data is genuinely accurate. We will tell you which case you are in, including when the answer is that the solver is not your problem.
How accurate does our master data need to be?
Accurate enough that a planner recognises the resulting schedule as achievable. In practice that means setup times and run rates within a reasonable tolerance of reality, and machine eligibility and calendars correct. Perfect data is not required, but systematically optimistic data is fatal, because every schedule will be infeasible in the same direction and trust will be lost quickly.
What happens when a machine breaks down?
The planner marks it unavailable and reschedules the affected work, which must be fast and partial. Jobs that were manually locked stay locked, the system shows what moved and why, and delivery consequences are made visible so someone can decide which promises to renegotiate. A system requiring full regeneration and discarding planner decisions will not be used at the moment it is most needed.
How is this different from your retail inventory management page?
They solve different problems that share a word. Retail inventory management concerns stock held for resale: replenishment to levels, allocation across locations, and forecasting for finished goods. Manufacturing planning concerns materials consumed to create something else, so requirements are derived by exploding bills of material against a production plan. If you need stock control for goods you resell, our retail inventory page is the right one.
Will planners resist this?
They resist systems that overrule them, reasonably, because they hold constraints the system does not. We reduce that by capturing their informal rules during design, making manual locks first class so interventions survive rescheduling, and making every automated decision explainable. Planners who can see why a job was placed late tend to engage with the system rather than work around it.
How long does implementation take?
Typically a few months to running in parallel for a single site, with the data audit and constraint capture taking a substantial share. Multi site network planning, engineer to order routings, or a plant needing significant data correction first extend it. We give a range after the data audit, because the audit determines whether we are building software or fixing foundations.
Do you integrate with our MES or shop floor system?
Yes, and the feedback loop is what keeps the system trustworthy. Actual start and finish times, quantities, and scrap correct planning parameters from measurement rather than opinion. If you have no shop floor capture, planning still works but its parameters can only be maintained manually, and they will decay. Our MES page covers the execution side.
Can you handle sequence dependent setup times?
Yes, and in many plants it is the single largest source of recoverable capacity. It requires a setup matrix or rule set describing the cost of moving between job characteristics, which frequently has to be measured rather than retrieved, since existing data often records one average setup time that hides the variation entirely.
What if our constraints change often?
Then they must be configuration rather than code, which is how we build them. New machines, changed eligibility, altered calendars, and new rules should be maintainable by your planning team. Where a genuinely novel constraint type appears, that is development, and we design the model so adding one does not require reworking the others.
What do you need from us to start?
Your current master data including routings, setup times, and calendars; a sample of recent actual production for comparison; the planning method used today including the spreadsheet if one exists; and access to your planners. The spreadsheet is often the most valuable artefact, because it contains the real constraints in a form nobody has documented.
