Whether you’re a production manager or a scheduler, you’ve finalized the production schedule, and the workload plan looks good. Yet, as soon as the shift begins, the schedule falls apart, and overtime hours pile up.
Industrial Planning decides what to produce, how much, when, and with what resources, across five levels, from the industrial and commercial plan down to team assignments. Up through the workload plan, capacity is measured in hours. At the final level, it is measured in people, and this is often where the plan breaks down.
What is industrial planning?
Industrial planning is the series of plans that determine what to produce, how much, when, and with what resources, in order to balance load and capacity of the plant.
Workload refers to what needs to be produced; capacity refers to what the plant can produce. Each level receives instructions from above, breaks them down, and passes them on to the next level.
Figure 1
When the load exceeds the capacity
The production schedule compares, week by week, what needs to be produced (the bars) with what the plant can produce (the dotted line).
Illustrative diagram; no values shown.
This framework dates back to MRP II from the 1980s, which most ERP systems still use. What are the risks if a level doesn't verify anything? The demand calculation assumes unlimited resources, and the resulting plan leads to weeks of overload, followed by delays.
Each level must therefore verify that the plan is feasible at its level before forwarding its decision.
The 5 Levels of Industrial Planning
Industrial planning is organized into five levels, from the PIC to team assignments, and the further down you go, the shorter the horizon becomes and the finer the mesh gets.
Production manuals list three or four levels, all the way down to the shop floor. They specify staffing levels in terms of numbers without specifying who can fill each position, so we add a fifth level.
| Level | Current Horizon | Mesh | Who wears it | Review | Indicator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PIC | 12 to 36 months, often 18 | Month, product family | Management, Sales, Production, Logistics, Finance | Monthly (S&OP) | Service Rate |
| PDP | At least the total manufacturing lead time | Week, finished product | Planner | Weekly | Stability of the firm zone |
| Demand Forecasting and Workload Planning | The PDP's | Week, charging station | Planner | Weekly | Load factor by position |
| Scheduling | A few days to a few weeks | Day or time, machine | Scheduler, Shop Floor Supervisor | Daily | Adherence to the schedule, OEE |
| Team Assignments | The week | Person, position | Team Leader, Production Manager | Every time you start a new job | Compliance Rate |
Figure 2
The horizon shortens; the unit of capacity changes
Select a level to view its time horizon, grid size, who uses it, its journal, and its indicator.
Capacity measured in hours
Capacity calculated in people
1. PIC
- Current Horizon
- 12 to 36 months, often 18
- Mesh
- Month, product family
- Who wears it
- Management, Sales, Production, Logistics, Finance
- Review
- Monthly (S&OP)
- Indicator
- Service Rate
2. PDP
- Current Horizon
- At least the total manufacturing lead time
- Mesh
- Week, finished product
- Who wears it
- Planner
- Review
- Weekly
- Indicator
- Stability of the firm zone
3. Demand Forecasting and Workload Planning
- Current Horizon
- The PDP's
- Mesh
- Week, charging station
- Who wears it
- Planner
- Review
- Weekly
- Indicator
- Load factor by position
4. Scheduling
- Current Horizon
- A few days to a few weeks
- Mesh
- Day or time, machine
- Who wears it
- Scheduler, Shop Floor Supervisor
- Review
- Daily
- Indicator
- Adherence to the schedule, OEE
5. Team Assignments
- Current Horizon
- The week
- Mesh
- Person, position
- Who wears it
- Team Leader, Production Manager
- Review
- Every time you start a new job
- Indicator
- Compliance Rate
Values taken from the five-level table; bar lengths are for illustrative purposes only. The fifth level was added by Mercateam.
The PIC, or Industrial and Commercial Plan
The PIC sets, month by month, and by product family, typically over an 18-month period, what the factory will manufacture and sell, and ensures that production capacity is sufficient.
Its English-language equivalent, S&OP, is a monthly meeting where sales, production, purchasing, and finance teams agree on a single plan. During these meetings, you decide on hiring and temporary staffing.
The PDP, or Production Master Plan
The PDP, or production master plan, translates the PIC into finished products on a week-by-week basis over a given time horizon at least equal to the cumulative manufacturing time, including components.
Set a fixed scope for the first few weeks and make changes only in exceptional cases, with the production team's approval, because every change requires component recommendations and rescheduling of the workshop.
Demand Forecasting and Workload Planning
The net requirements calculation (NRC) subtracts inventory and generates dated production and purchase orders from the production plan. The production plan then compares the requested hours with the available hours, item by item.
This load profile, which forms the basis of the production planning, shows the overloads. First, adjust the capacity (night shifts, weekends, outsourcing), because rescheduling orders will eventually affect the schedule.
Figure 3
In which week does your overtime allowance run out?
Recalculate the example using your own numbers. One box per week of the year; the purple box indicates exhaustion.
Quota exhausted at the Week 32.
220-hour quota per employee in the absence of an agreement (Labor Code, Art. D3121-24): replace this with the quota specified in your agreement. Beyond this limit, the hours worked entitle the employee to mandatory rest, which reduces available capacity later on.
Scheduling: How Is It Different from Planning?
Whereas planning determines what to produce and in which week, scheduling schedules the jobs on each machine, day by day, sometimes on the hour.
Finite-capacity scheduling takes into account available machines, changeovers, and operators. Before scheduling a night shift, you therefore verify that an authorized person is working on it.
Assigning Teams to Positions
The fifth level decides who holds which position, and who fills in for those who are absent, team by team. The team leader prepares it, then revises it at the start of the shift, when you see who's missing.
The scheduler sends the schedule; the'factory staffing goes back to the field. Only this level includes designated personnel, with their clearances and 11-hour rest periods.
Why does a plan that's feasible in terms of hours get stuck on the shop floor?
A plan that could be completed in a matter of hours is stalled in the workshop because'In that position, the only people who matter are those authorized to hold it.
As far as the work schedule is concerned, one hour is as good as another. On the job, if your forklift operator is absent, you can't replace him with the available operator next to him if that person doesn't have a forklift operator's license.
At a site with 200 operators working in two 8-hour shifts, for example, you can expect about ten absences each day based on the average absenteeism rate in the private sector. If one of them is the only person assigned to that position, that position comes to a halt.
Figure 4
Does the plan include hours and skills?
A line with six workstations and nine operators, each assigned to the workstations they are trained to operate. Report absences and compare the two results.
Team: Check off those who are absent
| Filling Machine, Labeling Machine, Quality Control | ||
| Autoclave, Filling Machine | ||
| Labeling Machine, Cartoning Machine | ||
| Case Packer, Forklift (driver's license) | ||
| Quality Control, Labeling Machine | ||
| Forklift (Operator's License), Case Packer | ||
| Labeling Machine, Cartoning Machine | ||
| Autoclave | ||
| Case Packer, Quality Control |
Open Positions (7 hours each)
Fictional example; initials are made up.
You may have read that a plan is feasible if the workload is measured in hours. That's true in the early stages. At critical positions—the ones that bring the line to a halt—count in terms of people with a skills matrix up to date.
How can we link the different levels of industrial planning?
The levels are connected by one review per level, with its indicator, which receives the decision from upper management and the feedback from the workshop. Which discrepancies should be reported? Three—the ones the workshop flags before each review.
- Long-term absences, which keep regular players out of action for several weeks.
- Authorizations that are about to expire, because an operator without a valid authorization can no longer hold their position.
- Positions handled by a single person, which come to a halt as soon as that person is absent.
Before finalizing a week's PDP schedule, make sure that each critical position has enough independent staff members on each team, because the fixed schedule commits you for several weeks.
At the S&OP review, present this breakdown of critical positions and the projected number of employees for each position six months from now, because this information determines hiring, temporary staffing, and training.
What tools are best for each level of planning?
You will equip It's rare to be able to cover all five levels with a single software program, because each tool operates on its own scale, and those in production operate in terms of machines and hours.
MRP for ERP systems plans with infinite capacity—as if nothing were missing—and leaves it up to you to decide. APS (advanced planning) plans with finite capacity. As for authorizations, they follow one another in the matrix.
| Tool | Levels | What it offers | Its limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spreadsheet | Simple PIC, one line | Flexibility | Each update is done manually |
| ERP or CAPM | PIC, PDP, Requirements Planning | Bills of Materials, Inventory, Orders | Infinite capacity |
| APS | Workload Plan, Scheduling | Finished capacity, changeovers | Does not replace the competency matrix |
| MES | Follow-up to the workshop | Execution Management, Integrated with the ERP System | Leave the PIC and the PDP to the ERP |
| HRIS and TMS (Time Management) | Absences, Work Hours | Attendance and Absences | Ignore the load |
| Assignment schedule | Team Assignments | Qualifications, Authorizations, Substitutes | Request an up-to-date matrix |
First, make sure that data is transferred from one tool to another without having to re-enter it, because every time data is copied by hand, it causes delays on the shop floor. At the team level, we recommend a assignment schedule linked to the competency matrix, the ERP system for workload, and the HRIS for absences.
Figure 5
One player out, one qualified substitute
Linked to the skills matrix, the staffing schedule suggests a replacement for each absent employee who is proficient in the position and can perform the job.
Filling Machine
Qualifications, authorization, and 11 hours of verified rest time
Labeling Machine
Quality control
Cart
Qualifications, authorization, and 11 hours of verified rest time
Illustrative diagram of a staffing schedule; initials are fictitious.
The LVMH Fragrance Brands facility in Beauvais employs up to 90 temporary workers per week. Since it began using Mercateam, no production line there has been shut down due to an unexpected absence, according to Our Customer Case Study.
Where should you start on your website?
Start by measuring Where Do Your Discrepancies Come From? over the last four weeks of the PDP's consolidation phase. The level at which the pattern breaks tells you what to correct first.
- Compare the planned and actual figures, week by week, over these four weeks.
- For each variance, note whether it stems from the forecast, the workload, the sequence, or the assignment.
- If staffing gaps are a major issue, link the competency matrix to the staffing schedule and include coverage of critical positions in the PDP review.
Figure 6
Where is your plan falling apart?
For each of your last four "fixed" weeks in the PDP, enter the number of discrepancies identified, broken down by cause.
| A Stagnant Week | Forecast | Charge | Sequence | Assignment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | ||||
| Week 2 | ||||
| Week 3 | ||||
| Week 4 |
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For this third step, you'll need a staff scheduling management which includes each team's games and days off.
To view a work assignment schedule that accounts for morning absences at your own workstations, Request a demo of Mercateam, which is used at more than 300 industrial sites.
Mercateam Work Schedule
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