Efficient production planning is the foundation of successful business operations

  • Elena Vižintin
  • 04/02/2023

Production is the heart of every company, and if this heart encounters a problem, the entire production process is in trouble. Soon, we may face one of the problems that go by the names of delayed procurement, delayed product delivery, stockpiling, unavailability of resources due to (increased) needs, decreased employee productivity, delayed response to production delays, and much more.

Manual planning is no longer acceptable in today's world.

Unfortunately, in Slovenia, most companies still rely on outdated tools and methods such as Excel spreadsheets or even more frighteningly, manually written work orders when it comes to production planning. Using such tools involves the manual entry of enormous amounts of data, which increases the factor of human error, and production planners spend a lot of time searching for the right information they usually need "here and now." Moreover, such tools do not support collaboration with sales and procurement departments, let alone with quality, logistics, accounting, or other processes in the company.

With good production planning, a company can provide products on time, thereby justifying and further improving customer trust.

We must be aware that the output of companies that rely on manual production planning is significantly lower than that of companies that have effectively digitized their production.

Why?

Primarily because of poor insight into production operations, as companies that rely on manual production planning cannot access timely (or "real-time") information on delays and anomalies, which would enable them to respond more quickly and efficiently. Additionally, manual production planning does not provide insight into real-time monitoring of production efficiency, which consequently complicates the planning of production activities and affects lower utilization of machinery, tools, and resources.

The solution? A Manufacturing Execution System (MES) for production management!

One of the decisive steps towards more efficient planning of the entire production process is the introduction of an information system for production management - MES (Manufacturing Execution System), with which we can achieve several important effects in every production company.

The most significant advantages of the MES system are:

  • a comprehensive view of production in one place and access to all production data in real-time, from anywhere and at any time
  • better production planning or automatic adjustment of production plans to actual execution
  • complete control over the entire production process
  • improved utilization of machinery, resources, tools, and processes
  • faster response to bottlenecks and irregularities
  • better material traceability
  • process complaint management
  • and much more

We must be aware that production is the one that creates value, so we cannot afford to let it stop and drag the entire company's business into the abyss.

Share content
Related content
This post has no related content

Read also

Start your digital transformation today

We are trusted by more than 100 companies of all sizes and industries