As a manufacturer in today’s competitive market, you need a production planning and scheduling software solution that enables you to utilize resources effectively, consistently exceed consumer expectations, and prepare for anything that comes your way. Protected Flow Manufacturing (PFM) is the only production planning system that can deliver all of that and more.
Proper production scheduling and management lets you make customer commitments with confidence. Using PFM, you can adjust the threat level (risk of being late) when unexpected variables arise to ensure all job deadlines are met.
Our production planning and scheduling software provides a clear priority for each operation, without complex finite scheduling. Instead of trying to plan the use of each resource into future time periods, PFM dynamically calculates the threat level of every work order in real time and optimally prioritizes work.
Ensure that every job runs through resources in the right sequence. By using our shop floor scheduling software to develop optimized flows, you can ensure that resources aren’t overloaded, thereby enabling you to complete one operation and move seamlessly on to the next.
PFM enables you to strategically allot resources for each job, which makes it possible to move more jobs through the shop floor in a shorter period of time.
Traditional scheduling prioritizes work by due date. Our manufacturing scheduling software identifies which jobs have the highest threat level and prioritizes them accordingly, so work is always completed on time.
Expediting jobs is both time-consuming and costly. PFM eliminates the need for it by enabling you to monitor work completed across all jobs in real time and determine which jobs to expedite without manual analysis.
Our production planning and scheduling software streamlines every aspect of the production cycle and enables you to account for variability. In doing so, we make it possible for you to consistently provide your customers with reliable delivery dates.
PFM provides you with opportunities to capture more business and to charge a premium for shorter lead times. It also provides faster cash velocity, meaning it reduces the amount of time between when you pay for materials and collect from customers.
PFM’s foundation prioritizes work in real time rather than require you to run and re-run a schedule. This puts the most accurate and up-to-date information directly into the hands of the people who need it most. Job assignments are understood, trusted, and executed in the correct order.
Our production planning and scheduling software seamlessly integrates with all of your existing production planning systems, including ERP, stock, and CRM solutions, in order to augment and extend their functionality.
Rather than assign future capacity to jobs the way traditional production scheduling software would, PFM simulates capacity usage and points out which jobs and resources are most likely to have problems. This provides you with a clear picture of the future and enables you to implement an action plan to deliver jobs on time.
PFM automatically adjusts priorities based on real-time labor reporting, so you always have access to the most up-to-date information.
Thanks to real-time reporting, our shop floor scheduling software enables you to see the exact status of every job on the production floor.
PFM takes production control one step further than traditional solutions by not only presenting schedules in an easy-to-understand visual format, but also by color-coding job sequences based on priority. This enables shop floor staff to see what needs to be worked on and when, and for you to see the status of different jobs.
Our manufacturing production scheduling software plans for unexpected problems that can disrupt a static schedule. It achieves this by calculating time buffers based on the ratio of actual time to buffer time and the sum of different buffer sizes based on the operations required. PFM then automatically builds those into your schedule.
PFM is internet-capable, meaning workers can access priority lists from any device connected to the internet, including tablets and smartphones.
Q: What is production planning?
A: Production planning refers to the process by which manufacturers allocate resources — including raw materials, employees, and production capacity — to meet the requirements of incoming work orders.
Q: Why are production planning and scheduling important?
A: Production planning and scheduling are essential to ensuring proper resource allocation, completing work on time, and meeting customer commitments.
Q: What are the main things to consider when scheduling production?
A: When scheduling production, it’s important to consider raw materials, available inventory, production capacity, employee skill levels, forecasted demand, and due dates, as well as other variables that can crop up during a job.
Q: Why is Excel and other spreadsheet-based software insufficient for production planning and scheduling?
A: Although Excel and other manual forms of shop floor scheduling are affordable and pose a relatively low barrier to entry, using spreadsheets for production planning and scheduling is labor intensive and error prone. Excel and other spreadsheet-based software do not offer true dynamic capacity management, meaning manual schedules quickly become outdated. By comparison, PFM uses dynamic capacity management, so your employees can trust that all schedules are up to date and accurate.
Q: Why is QuickBooks insufficient for production planning and scheduling?
A: Although QuickBooks Enterprise for Manufacturing & Wholesale is a popular production scheduling software solution, it doesn’t enable you to convert raw material levels into finished product stock. Additionally, QuickBooks is unable to account for variability on the shop floor — such as workers calling out sick, machinery breaking down, and so on — the same way that PFM does.
