SMB Production Scheduling Blog

Today's update marks the first one of 2020 and we start the year with a small update to warm up for the rest of it. I’m exited thinking about the changes we plan for this year, which will include things that may be more in the background but will help stabilize just plan it and make sure your scheduling experience is smooth to major features that will really enhance the software even further.

But for now let’s take a second (pun very much intended ;-) to take a closer look at what today brings:

This blog post reveals the 3 steps to improve your on-time deliveries by at least 30% without constant fire-fighting. We know that dealing with rush orders and with key customer inquiries often results in chaotic fire-drills. We found the formula to overcome this with professional production scheduling and with the appropriate training to succeed.

With today’s update we want to thank you, our customers, for the last year of letting us help you bring your production scheduling to the next level. We actually feel that we can look back with some pride as we made a couple of major enhancements to our production scheduling software. My personal highlights were the capability to assign 2 resources to any given task and that we - finally - cracked the code and implemented the send-ahead quantity capability to further reduce your lead times.

We also got really great and insightful feedback from all of you that allowed us to enhance just plan it in ways we ourselves wouldn’t have thought of. So before detailing this last small update of the year 2019, in the name of the entire just plan it team, I just want to say:

THANK YOU and happy holidays! We are looking forward to 2020, to continuing to work with you, and to further enhancing just plan it to best facilitate you in professional production scheduling. -- But now to the actual product update:

With finishing our current sprint and publishing a new just plan it version the continuous improvement process of our production scheduling software took the next step. This time we are showing up with a major new functionality again: with the “Send-ahead Quantity” you are able to define overlaps of subsequent tasks to reduce the throughput time. In addition we included two more new enhancements (“housekeeping”) and made the next significant step in regards of “workflow for routines”. Hereinafter I give an overview over all news that come along with the new release.

With finishing the next development sprint and publishing a new just plan it version we continued the ongoing improvement process of our production scheduling software. This time the improvement of performance was put into the focus of the development team. But we did also some „housekeeping“ and made the next step in regards of “workflow for routines”. Hereinafter I give an overview over all news that come along with the new release.

Scheduling in a high mix low volume environment is challenging in many ways. The high volatility of planning data due to ongoing and unforeseeable changes of the planning situation is not only a core characteristic of that business sector but also one main reason why scheduling is so critical.

To better clarify what I mean let's have a look at the „natural order of things“ concerning SMB production scheduling from the very beginning of a SMBs historical timeline.

With finishing our current development sprint and publishing a new just plan it version the continuous improvement process of our production scheduling software took the next step. This time we essentially focused on „housekeeping“. But in addition we included some little new enhancements that are meant to be first a step of new subject areas for future advanced enhancements. Hereinafter I give an overview over all news that come along with the new release.

A proper job shop scheduling software has numerous advantages which improve the overall efficiency of a job shop. Still, some high-mix low-volume (HMLV) manufacturers might not be fully convinced that their own job shop actually belongs to those needing a more advanced job shop scheduling tool. One might find its own production too small to justify an investment into a software. Hence, despite the possibility of using a proper scheduling software, many small make-to-order manufacturers still rely on their old scheduling tools: paper, whiteboards or most commonly Excel. This posts first reflects on those simple production scheduling tools and then shares 3 signs that your shop needs proper job shop scheduling.

Production scheduling software is an advanced planning and scheduling approach that allows producers and manufacturers to effectively manage operations while improving the overall customer experience. Manufacturing scheduling or production planning software especially helps small make-to-order manufacturers such as job shops or machine shops to achieve their next level of company development.

Such software offers flexibility with powerful features that allows real-time scheduling throughout the manufacturing and supply chain. If you are wondering why your company needs one, we have valuable insights for you. Businesses use production scheduling techniques and related tools to organize multiple varieties of horizons. 

Some top production scheduling software benefits include improved on-time deliveries, increased throughput, and better resource utilization. The software offers numerous techniques and tools to help executives and managers. With that, we have listed down the top 5 methods that innovative companies apply when using production scheduling software.

The continuous improvement process of our job shop scheduling software took the next step: the new version of just plan it has just been rolled out. And this time, we are coming up with a real blast! Since we started just plan it back in 2016, there was one feature that has been required most and that many manufacturers thought of as indispensable. This to assign two resources to one task.

After understanding your needs it took us quite a while to implement this mighty feature as it – among other things – necessitated to redesign our automatic scheduling engine. But I'm super excited to announce that the new module „Advanced Scheduling II“ is available now. Furthermore, we published several new additional useful functions which are eligible for all customers of the Base Plans (Starter & Full).

Hereinafter I give an overview of all new functionality and features that come along with the new release.