Production planning

Production planning is a process that combines analyzing availability of production resources and scheduling a sequence of operations that consume these resources for completing production orders.

In 1C:Drive supports the following production planning steps:

1. Set up production planning.
2. Place production orders in a production queue.
3. Prioritize production orders.
4. Specify operations for production orders.
5. Schedule operations for production orders. 
6. Reschedule operations for production orders.
7. Monitor production orders.

Production planning is an optional part of the Multioperation make-to-order process. If you apply production planning, its steps replace the following step of the multioperation make-to-order process:

• Place production order.

Setting up production planning

Production planning is closely related to Multioperation make-to-order process. The settings of this process are required for production planning. So, before you start production planning, ensure that you properly set up the Multioperation make-to-order process. Then do the following:

1. Go to Settings > Accounting settings > Production > Production planning and do the following:
   • To be able to plan production, select the Use workload planning check box and then the Use production planning check box.
   • To specify the period that you want to plan production for, enter the Planning horizon. Production orders will be scheduled within this period. 
2. To be able to define production resources and their availability, do the following:
   • Go to Production > Catalogs > Business calendars and fill in a business calendar that applies in your country.
   • Go to Production > Catalogs > Work schedule and set up your company’s work schedule. As you do this, ensure that you specify the filled in business calendar.
   • Open your company’s card and in the Work schedule field, select the company’s work schedule.
3. To define production departments, create departments in the Departments catalog and set Planning interval. This interval is a planning period for an operation. For instance, a day can be a planning period for the wood cutting operation in the table manufacturing process.
   Warning! It is highly recommended that you set Planning interval equal to the average time that the operation takes in a work center. Otherwise, a sequence of operations can be scheduled for a period that is longer than actually required. For instance, an operation takes 15 minutes but you set the Planning interval to 1 hour. A sequence of two operations is scheduled to start at 9:00 AM.  Then in this schedule, first operation starts at 9:00 AM and the second operation starts at 10:00 AM instead of 9:15 AM.
4. To define production resources and their work schedules,  create work centers types in the Work centers catalog or Work centers workplace. A work center type can be a group of machines or a team of assembly workers, or another type of your production resources consumed in similar operations.
5. If you want to plan production by work center types, ensure the following for each work center type:
   • The Plan on work centers level check box is cleared.
   • Work schedule is specified.  

   Then you will be able to generate and  view production schedules by work center types.

   If you want to plan production by each work center individually, select the Plan on work centers level check box. Then you will be able to generate and view production schedules by individual work centers. For instance, by each piece of equipment or assembly worker.

6. To define individual production resources, create work centers in the Work centers catalog or Work centers workplace.  
7. To assign operations to work centers, specify a work center type for each operation in the Operations catalog.
8. To define availability of production resources,  in the Work centers workplace, do one of the following:
   • To plan production by work center types,  set up availability for each work center type.
   • To plan production by work centers, set up availability for each work center.

Placing production orders in production queue

When you receive a sales order that requires product manufacturing, create a production order. Ensure that you do the following:

• Set the production order status to In progress.
• Set the production order Priority.
• Set the production order start and due dates.
• Select the Use production planning check box.
• Specify the product bill of materials.

After you post this production order, it will appear in a production orders queue in Production > Planning > Production planning and control. Icon  is displayed for the production order.  This indicates that the production order requires reviewing its priority and generating Work in progress documents.  

Prioritizing production orders

When you have finished with placing new production orders in a production orders queue, review their priorities in the Production planning and control workplace. To do this:

1. On the filter pane, select Generating Work in progress check box. Only new production orders are displayed in the production orders queue. 
2. In the production orders queue, check the Priority column.  
3. If needed, change the priorities.

Changing a production order priority changes the production order position in the production orders queue. The higher the priority, the closer the production order to the top of the production queue. The production orders with higher priorities will be scheduled first.

Specifying operations for production orders

When you are sure that production orders are prioritized correctly, generate Work in progress documents in the Production planning and control workplace. This will register a Work in process document for each operation required for completing the production orders.  To learn more, see Specifying operations for production orders.

Scheduling operations for production orders

When all operations are registered for production orders, schedule these operations in the Production planning and control workplace. This will automatically put each operation on the schedule of the assigned work center or work center type depending on the following:

• The sequence of operations in the bill of materials.
• Planning interval of the production department.
• Availability of the assigned work center or work center type.

To learn more, see Scheduling operations for production orders.

Then you can view the production order schedule using the following:

• The Gantt chart for each scheduled production order. To learn more, see Viewing production schedule by operations.
• The Production schedule report in Production > Reports.

You can also analyze the work centers workload using the Work centers availability report in Production > Reports.

The reports will be shown by work centers or work center types depending on their settings.

Rescheduling operations for production orders

A new production order can arise after you have completed production scheduling. In this case, add the new production order in the production orders queue and repeat the production planning steps.

Rescheduling is also required if you change any of the following:

• The production order start date.
• The production order priority. 
• Availability of a work center or work center type assigned to complete the production order.
• Manually change the production order position in the queue.

In these cases, icon is displayed for the production orders affected by the changes. Schedule operations for these production orders once again. You can select one or multiple production orders for scheduling.

Monitoring production orders

In the Production planning and control workplace, you have the following options for monitoring  production orders:

• To view production orders with the completed production process, on the filter pane, select the Completed check box.
• To view the production orders that are not completed by their due date, on the filter pane, select the Overdue check box.