Planning your production in order to anticipate the quantities produced, the state of the stock and the management of the teams is essential in industry. The Production Master Plan (PDP) is therefore the ideal tool for the short-term management of the latter.
The Production Master Plan (PDP) is an ERP feature.
Also called Manufacturing Planning and Scheduling (MPS), the PDP helps
manufacturers in the short-term management of their production activity. It is
therefore a module mainly used in industry.
But what do we call short term? In general,
manufacturers use it on a daily or weekly basis.
Its purpose is to predict variations in the stock of
materials, to anticipate manufacturing and supply needs taking into account
customer demand. In short, it is a real ally for industrial production
management.
In this article you will see:
- The production master plan, definition.
- What are the benefits of the Production Master Plan?
- How to develop a PDP?
- The Production Master Plan in Sage X3
The production master plan, definition
We have already started to define what PDP is in the
introduction. However, let me give you a little more detail.
As we mentioned, this is an indispensable ERP function
for manufacturing plants. This allows them to predict:
- The products to be produced
- When to produce
- How much to produce
This is interesting to avoid over-stocking which is
expensive and not profitable for the company. Conversely, planning its
production avoids under-stocking and therefore the lack of resources delaying
the manufacturing process and therefore delivery.
The PDP is produced from the PIC, the Industrial and Commercial Plan. Indeed, it is from the data of the PIC that we can develop the PDP. But we will come back to this subject a little later
What are the advantages of the Production Master Plan
PDP has many advantages. Here is a list of the main
ones:
- The PDP is a reliable indicator in the management of goods
- PDP is simple to perform and understand
- It provides better management of supply and storage costs
- It allows a better estimate of the delivery time of orders
- It makes it possible to set clear and achievable stock coverage objectives
- The PDP allows you to optimize your workshop schedule
- It provides a short-term vision allowing corrective and / or anticipatory actions to be carried out quickly
- The PDP is adapted to your activity
In short, the PDP function in your ERP solution is
your best ally to manage your production processes and your short-term stocks
and improve customer satisfaction due to more reliable delivery times.
How to develop a PDP?
As already mentioned, the PDP can be integrated into
your ERP software package. This is a feature to request when integrating the
management software (or to add later if needed).
The steps to achieve it are simplified and quick
thanks to the ERP. The integrator in charge of integrating your software can
customize and adjust it to the activity and needs of your business.
Developing your PDP is easy, fast and intuitive with
an ERP solution capable of managing this functionality.
PDP steps
The PIC (Industrial and Commercial Plan)
This acronym may not speak to you, yet it is a very
practical tool for establishing your objectives in relation to your abilities.
Indeed, the industrial and commercial plan is often carried out in 1 month, the
PIC makes the link between your objectives (distribution, finance, sale) and
your capacities (stock, production, workforce, etc.). The goal is therefore to
have a long-term vision of the achievable results while knowing what will be
the necessary means in production to achieve the objectives set.
The PIC is carried out before the PDP since to be
carried out, the latter relies on the data of the PIC.
PDP
As said above, the PDP is carried out from the data
collected with the PIC.
Indeed, it will make it possible to predict which
products to manufacture and in what quantity. The goal is to avoid
over-stocking, under-stocking and to make order deliveries more reliable.
The PDC (The
Load Plan)
The Workload Plan resembles the Industrial and
Commercial Plan since here too the goal is to link objectives and capacity.
However, the PIC is carried out upstream of production and is therefore
provisional. Here, the PDC is based on the results obtained (quantities
produced, quantities sold, material stock capacity, delivery time, etc.) over a
given period.
The goal is therefore to analyze the production
process in order to anticipate the modifications necessary to carry out the
production. uction planned with the PIC.
Planning and
scheduling
What to choose between planning and scheduling? This
is a question that manufacturers regularly ask themselves.
As a reminder, production planning is the fact of
programming its tasks and operations taking into account the deadlines that we
have. The goal is to produce at a lower cost and avoid over-stocking in
logistics while delivering to customers on time. This requires knowing what
products to manufacture, in what quantity, with what resources and in what time
frame?
On the other hand, scheduling consists of
strategically planning your production in relation to the production
constraints of the different tasks and manufacturing orders. Here, production
is controlled in real time and is constantly adapted.
So which way to choose? Well both!
Indeed, planning and scheduling are equally important
and can be combined to maximize production management.
This is where ERP comes in. It is this tool that will
adjust your schedule in relation to your stocks and manufacturing / delivery
times. In addition, an ERP is an intelligent software capable of guiding you
thanks to its decision support.
It is therefore he who will help you in the planning
of your production and the overall management of the latter (stock management
in logistics, deadlines, etc.).
This allows you to improve your performance, reduce
your costs and increase customer satisfaction.
The production master plan in Sage X3
We have seen what was the interest of the PDP for the
management of its production but what about in X3?
In Sage X3 you have a PIC-PDP module dedicated to
managing and optimizing your production. This module is therefore perfect to
help you manage your production from A to Z by reducing the costs generated by
the latter.
With this Sage X3 module you can:
- Defining item families
- Have access to technical information to simulate and customize analyzes
- Create forecast horizons with different periods or variables
- View a sales history
- Define provisional budgets by family
- Allocate budgets by line item
- Build custom dashboards
In short, Sage has developed a complete and
customizable module in Sage X3 allowing you to create Production Master Plans
easily, quickly and reliably in order to minimize your production costs while
guaranteeing the respect of deadlines.
To conclude, working with a PDP is essential in
company production management. An ERP solution such as Sage X3 allows you to
generate PDPs intuitively and guarantees an improvement in your internal
organization as well as a gain in efficiency over the long term.