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Introduction to the Production Plan Register

A Production Plan is a scheduling tool that you can use to plan future Productions based on the predicted future sales in Sales Forecast records.

Usually you will create Production Plans using the 'Create Production Plan' Maintenance function in the MRP module, but you can also enter them directly to the Production Plan register yourself.

The 'Create Production Plan' Maintenance function will create Production Plans as follows:

  1. It will check Sales Forecasts from the specified period for Items that need to be assembled (i.e. for Stocked Items with Recipes). Only Sales Forecasts that have been marked as OK will be checked.

  2. Each Stocked Item with a Recipe in Sales Forecasts will be included in its own row in the resulting Production Plan. The Needed Date for each Item will be the first day in the Sales Forecast period i.e. the first day in a week or month.

  3. The calculation of the required quantity for each Item in a Production Plan will take into account the quantity in the Sales Forecast (i.e. the estimated quantity that will be sold during the Forecast period), the quantity currently in stock (or estimated to be in stock at the beginning of the Forecast period) and the quantity that is required to be in stock at the end of the period (taken from the Stock Policies setting).

  4. Each Production Plan row will contain a date when production work should start, to ensure that all units will be produced by the Needed Date. The calculation of this Start Date requires some or all of the following information:

    • Fixed Assembly Days, Time to Setup, Days/Hours/Minutes/Seconds to Produce and Number Produced in the Recipe;

    • Buffer Days in the Production Settings setting in the Production module;

    • A record in the Production Item Alternatives register connecting the Recipe to a Machine; and

    • A record in the Machine Hours register in the Production module for the Machine Group to which the Machine belongs.
Please refer to the Start Dates in Production Plans page for more details about how Start Dates will be calculated.

After you have marked a Production Plan as OK and saved it, proceed as follows:

  1. If you need to create Purchase Orders for any of the components needed by the Production Plan, run the 'Create Purchase Order Plan' Maintenance function. This will create a Purchase Order Plan that includes both the buyable Items in the Sales Forecast and the Items that are required as components in the Production Plan. Usually you will need to run the 'Create Purchase Order Plan' function for an earlier period than that covered by the Production Plan to ensure that the components will be purchased.

  2. When you are ready to create Productions or Production Orders from the Production Plan, you can either run the Create Productions' Maintenance function or you can open the Production Plan and select 'Productions' from the Create menu.

    To decide whether these functions will create Productions or Production Orders, use the Generate Planned options in the Production Settings setting.

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The Production Plan register in Standard ERP:

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