Production Planner Features & Definitions

Overview

Production Planner handles detailed scheduling and management of manufacturing operations across shop floors. It assigns production orders to physical resources while respecting stage sequences, resource constraints, operating hours, and delivery deadlines.

The module is organised around a shop floor hierarchy: each Shop Floor contains Stages (sequential production steps), and each Stage contains Resources (physical equipment or machines). Production orders are scheduled onto resources as Jobs, which can be grouped into Campaigns.

Planners build schedules manually, generate them automatically with Quick Schedule, or use the multi-objective Optimizer to explore trade-offs between competing priorities. The system continuously evaluates the schedule for exceptions.

Shop floor structure

Production is organised in a three-level hierarchy:

• Shop Floor — the top-level production facility, associated with a specific location. Default operating hours are configured here.
• Stage — a sequential production step within a shop floor. Stages are ordered, and jobs generally follow this sequence. Items can be configured to skip stages they don’t require.
• Resource — a physical machine or piece of equipment within a stage. Jobs are assigned to resources, either directly or as part of a Campaign.

Each level has its own worksheet: Shop Floors, Stages, and Resources. See Shop Floor Setup.

Production orders

Production orders represent confirmed manufacturing requirements. Each specifies an item (SKU), quantity, and location, along with a firm order date and expected delivery date. The number of batches is calculated automatically from the order quantity and the item’s incremental order quantity (IOQ).

Key fields in the Production Orders worksheet:

Field	Meaning
PO Number	The order identifier
SKU / Item Name / Product Family	What needs to be produced
Location	The facility where the order is produced and fulfilled; must match the shop floor’s location
Expected Delivery Date	When the order must be completed
First Job Start / Last Job Stop	The actual scheduled production window, populated once scheduled
Is Scheduled	Whether the order is fully scheduled across all required stages

Orders display a red alert when the last scheduled job finishes after the expected delivery date.

Production constraints

Production constraints define the relationship between items and resources. For each item-resource combination:

• Setup Duration — time to prepare the resource before a run begins. Batch-agnostic: applied once per job regardless of batch count.
• Processing Duration — per-batch production time, multiplied by the number of batches.
• Cleaning Duration — time to clean the resource after production. Batch-agnostic, applied once per job.
• Interruptible — whether the job can pause and resume across non-contiguous windows (across shifts, or around downtimes).

Production change constraints

Change constraints capture the changeover time required when switching a resource from one item to another. Each defines a from-item, a to-item, and the change duration for a specific resource.

Changeover times are factored into scheduling, and the Optimizer can minimise total changeover time as one of its objectives.

Jobs and campaigns

Jobs

A Job is the fundamental scheduling unit — an individual production task assigned to a specific resource with a defined start and stop time. Each job’s run time breaks down into setup, processing, cleaning, and (where applicable) changeover.

Jobs can be standalone or grouped in a Campaign. Multi-stage production produces separate jobs on resources across different stages, following the required stage sequence.

Campaigns

A Campaign groups related production jobs by product family on a single resource within a defined time window, coordinating batch production and tracking resource utilisation.

Key metrics:

• Total Available Time — the full production window from campaign start to stop.
• Utilization — (last job end time − campaign start) ÷ total available time. Above 100% raises an Over-utilized exception.

Scheduling

PLAIO offers three approaches:

Manual Scheduling — create and move jobs directly in the Shop Floor Scheduler: assign jobs to resources, move jobs between campaigns, adjust timing.

Quick Schedule — automatically generates an initial schedule for selected orders from a given date, respecting resource constraints, stage sequences, and operating hours. Planners review the suggestions and confirm to save.

Optimizer — planners select two objectives to balance:

• Minimize Tardiness — reduce the number of days orders are delivered late.
• Minimize Earliness — reduce the number of days orders finish before they’re needed.
• Minimize Changeover Time — reduce total setup and changeover duration.
• Minimize Missed Orders — maximise the number of orders completed by their delivery date.

The Optimizer returns multiple solutions, each a different trade-off between the two objectives. Each is saved as a separate Production Version. See Optimizer Objectives and Scheduling Modes.

Production versions

Production Versions are named snapshots of a scheduling scenario for a shop floor. They let planners:

• Compare scheduling strategies side by side
• Evaluate Optimizer results before committing
• Track who created or modified each version and when

See Versions & Scenarios.

Uptime and downtime

Downtimes

Downtimes are scheduled periods when a resource or entire shop floor is unavailable — maintenance, holidays, facility closures. They can be defined at two levels:

• Floor-level — affects all resources on the shop floor.
• Resource-level — affects only a specific resource.

Downtimes are inclusive at start and exclusive at stop, so a job can begin exactly when a downtime ends.

Uptime patterns and overrides

Default operating hours are configured at the shop floor level. Uptime Patterns are reusable schedule templates that can be applied as overrides for specific dates. Uptime Overrides adjust operating hours for individual dates at floor or resource level — useful for holidays, extended shifts, or weekend runs.

Exceptions

The system continuously evaluates the schedule and flags issues in the Exceptions worksheet:

Exception	Meaning
Over-utilized	Total job run time, from campaign start to last job end, exceeds the available campaign window
Overlaps with other Campaign	Two campaigns on the same resource conflict in time
Campaign Order Collision	Campaign jobs overflow into the next campaign’s time window
Partially Scheduled	Not all required production stages are fully scheduled for an order
Invalid Job Order	Jobs are scheduled on stages out of the required logical sequence
Late Order	The last scheduled job finishes after the order’s expected delivery date
Quantity and IOQ Mismatch	Order quantity is not a multiple of the incremental order quantity
Job Overlap	Two jobs overlap in time on the same resource
Location Mismatch	The order’s location does not match the shop floor’s location

Definitions

Term	Definition
Campaign	A time-boxed batch of related production jobs grouped by product family on a single resource, to minimise changeover time
Cleaning Duration	Time to clean a resource after a production run, applied once per job regardless of batch count
Downtime	A scheduled period when a resource or shop floor is unavailable, applied at floor or resource level
Exception	A scheduling issue or constraint violation detected by the system
Expected Delivery Date	The date a production order must be completed and ready
Firm Order Date	The date a production order was confirmed or committed
Interruptible	Whether a job can pause and resume across non-contiguous time windows
Job	An individual production task on a specific resource, with start time, stop time, and a run-time breakdown
Late Order	Raised when the last scheduled job finishes after the expected delivery date
Optimizer	Multi-objective scheduling engine generating Pareto-optimal schedules from two selected objectives
Processing Duration	Per-batch production time for an item on a resource, multiplied by batch count
Production Change Constraint	Changeover time when switching a resource from one item to another, as a from/to pair with a duration
Production Constraint	Configuration linking an item to a resource: setup, processing, and cleaning durations, plus interruptibility
Production Order	A manufacturing order specifying item, quantity, location, and delivery date
Production Version	A named snapshot of a scheduling scenario for a shop floor
Quick Schedule	Automated generation of an initial production schedule for selected orders from a given date
Resource	A physical machine or piece of equipment within a production stage
Setup Duration	Time to prepare a resource before a run begins, applied once per job
Shop Floor	The top-level production facility entity, associated with a location
Stage	An ordered production step within a shop floor, containing one or more resources
Uptime Override	A date-specific override of default operating hours for a resource or shop floor
Uptime Pattern	A reusable schedule template defining operating hours
Utilization	(last job end time − campaign start) ÷ total available time