Production planning & scheduling · Metal fabrication & machining
Keep every job on the schedule it promised.
Routings collide on one press brake, a hot job jumps the queue, and the dispatch list stops matching the floor. The gap surfaces when a ship date blows.
The reality
Scheduling is a capacity problem you find too late.
A rush order drops in, the planner re-sorts the laser and brake queue by hand, and three downstream jobs quietly slip. Material isn't kitted, the CNC is double-booked against a setup it can't share, and the first anyone hears of it is the customer asking where their parts are.
The operator owns the schedule end to end: it reads work orders, routings, and machine load out of the ERP, finds the bottleneck before it bites, resequences across work centers, and confirms the new dates back to sales — so the dispatch list always matches the floor.
How the operator runs production planning & scheduling
Work center · BRAKE-02 load
overloaded- WO-8841 routing read
- Machine load pulled from ERP
- Brake queue overruns 06/19 ship — flagged
01Detect the capacity gap
Reads work orders, routings, and machine load, then flags where the brake and laser queue overruns the promised ship date.
Dispatch list · Cell B
resequencing- WO-8841 moved ahead of WO-8809
- Setup group matched — no extra changeover
- Material kitted check — WO-8852 short
02Resequence the jobs
Reshuffles the dispatch list across work centers, respecting setup groups and material availability, to clear the bottleneck.
Sales confirm · Order 4471
confirming- New ship date written to ERP
- Affected orders identified
- Revised dates sent to sales
03Confirm the dates
Writes the new schedule back to the ERP and sends sales the revised ship dates before the customer has to ask.
The outcome
−60% of scheduling admin off the team
Machines run on plan, no missed ship dates.
- Capacity conflicts surface before they cost a ship date
- The dispatch list on the floor matches the schedule in the ERP
- Sales hears about a slip from you, not from the customer
Common questions
Production planning & scheduling
- What does the Production planning & scheduling operator do?
- The operator owns the schedule end to end: it reads work orders, routings, and machine load out of the ERP, finds the bottleneck before it bites, resequences across work centers, and confirms the new dates back to sales — so the dispatch list always matches the floor.
- What impact does the Production planning & scheduling operator have?
- −60% of scheduling admin off the team. Machines run on plan, no missed ship dates.
- How does the Production planning & scheduling operator work?
- Reads work orders, routings, and machine load, then flags where the brake and laser queue overruns the promised ship date. Reshuffles the dispatch list across work centers, respecting setup groups and material availability, to clear the bottleneck. Writes the new schedule back to the ERP and sends sales the revised ship dates before the customer has to ask.
More operators in Metal fabrication & machining
See the full catalogue →