More custom-made production scheduling: Making just plan it modular

In the first quarter of this year, we put our energy on a major redesign of the architecture of our software. Thus we reacted to a core request customers and trial users have been asking us consistently: This has been the request for a more flexible, customer-tailored software "packaging". Here is a sample question we heard endless times: "I like the PRO plan, but would like to add templates to it". As a consequence, we made just plan it modular ... and now facilitate a much more custom-made usage of our production scheduling software. You can define your just plan it "configuration" by your own, and hence just use and pay what you require.

With the new software architecture, we say goodbye to the old "packages" called Basic, Pro and Enterprise for all new accounts.

Impact for existing (paying) customers

Please notice: we are proud to give our clients a lifelong price guarantee, and hence nothing changed for current customers with respect to the amount you pay us. You all continue to have the same functional scope that you used to have, and the amount of money that we charge you stays the same (well, there is one change: from now on, you need to pay us by credit card; please see a separate blog post about this).

In addition to this, existing customers get two bonus functionalities for free:

1. You now can plan with quantities - both on job and task level. If you used the PRO plan before, you now have job and task quantities that can get multiplied with the production time per unit (by default, the quantity is set to 1).
2. We enabled the hybrid scheduling mode for all existing customers. Going forward, it is part of the enhanced scheduling module (see below). However, we decided to reward our loyal customers and give them this function for free.

The new world: Free, Starter plus Modules

If you are not yet a paying customer, the following applies for you from now on:

1. When you sign up for just plan it for the first time, you are on the FREE plan. Yes: you got it right. We offer a free plan for just plan it, and free means free - forever (as long as you are happy with the scope offered within the free plan). The FREE plan is limited to a maximum of 50 tasks, but literally allows for unlimited resources.
2. If you need to schedule more than 50 tasks (and look for more scheduling functionality), you can switch to the STARTER plan. You can test the STARTER plan for free for 30 days. After that, we'll charge you money for it. 
3. Once on the STARTER plan, you can enhance your production scheduling experience by additional functions that support your specific requirements. We call these additional functions "Modules".

So the idea of the modular just plan it architecture is that you just pay what you require and that "your" just plan it can grow with your requirements.

Let's shed a light on the options you have ...

The FREE plan

First and foremost: the FREE plan is what it says. It is free to use, no credit card required and it's free forever. The FREE plan provides you with core automatic and manual production scheduling functionality - made for job shops, machine shops and small make-to-order manufacturers. It comes with unlimited resources, access for 1 planner and unlimited viewers and provides you with the Jobs View and the Resource Group View. 

The FREE plan is limited to 50 tasks. This can be OK if you are small. However, if you have more jobs with more tasks, we recommend to use the FREE plan (which is free forever) to achieve the following:

• Get familiar with our automatic scheduling
• Set up your resources and resource groups (they are not limited)

Once you are done with this and want to experience more scheduling power, switch the account to the STARTER plan.

The STARTER plan

The STARTER plan is not for free. We'll charge money for it, but you can test it for 30 days before we charge your credit card. Here is actually a short video that shows you how to start the free trial of the STARTER plan from your free account.

The STARTER plan is based on the same scheduling engine as the FREE plan, but it allows you to handle much more tasks and jobs. With the STARTER plan, you can schedule up to 1,500 tasks.

In addition to this, the STARTER includes

• More scheduling comfort (all functions in the Update tab)
• The capability to upload data from Excel
• Additional scheduling views
• More planners (one at a time to be logged in)

With STARTER, you can come a long way with respect to proper production scheduling. However, there might be occasions in which you need something extra. In that case, simply add one (or more) of the following modules to your STARTER base plan.

The MODULES

MODULES are meant to provide you with additional functionality to supercharge your STARTER plan. They are optional and you can pay them if you need the related extra production scheduling power. Here are the modules you can chose from:

Reporting

Reporting includes all functionality that comes with the Report tab. Use the report builder to create job reports, task reports, capacity reports and much more. Once created, you can export all reports to Excel and further tweak them there, or share with your colleagues. In addition to this, the Reporting module allows you to set the baseline per job so that you can do powerful schedule vs. current analyses. Have a look at the short videos in the "report" playlist to understand what you can achieve with the Reporting module.

Schedule with job templates

Do you have jobs (with a complex routing) that repeat from time to time? Or are you specialized on producing a set of items that you make regularly? In these cases, the Job Templates module can be of big help for you. With a template, you can define the routing of that repeat job once, and then apply to any new job that you create. Of course, you can define and manage as many templates as you like. Templates were introduced two years ago and here you can read more about how this works.

Schedule with detailed times

With the STARTER plan, you schedule each task with the total time it takes to complete it for one unit that you manufacture. We call it production time per unit, or runtime. This works for many customers. However, we also know cases in which you need to break-down this total time into more detailed time blocks. This is what the "schedule with detailed times" module brings you. Here you can differentiate:

• Set-up time
• Production time per unit
• Tear-down time
• Transfer time

Read this blog post (scroll to the bottom) to learn more about these detailed times.

Enhanced scheduling

The Enhanced Scheduling module as of now consists of two additional scheduling capabilities:

• The capacity level that you can define for each resource.
• Hybrid scheduling, which allows you to schedule some jobs manually although you have the general setting of an automatic scheduling. The manually scheduled and thus pinned jobs won't then be impacted by any automatic scheduling update.

Execute Mode

The Execute Mode is a very powerful module. It provides you with the capability to add information from the shopfloor to the schedule. This can even be done by operators from their mobile devices. Based on this real-time shopfloor information, you can (automatically) update your schedule and hence keep it current. We recommend watching the intro-level videos on the the Execute Mode module in the execute playlist. 

Additional tasks

Think that 1,500 tasks (as are included in the STARTER plan) are not sufficient to manage your schedule? Buy additional 1,500 with this extra module.

Unlimited planner

Also, you can enhance your STARTER plan and select to work with an unlimited amount of planners simultaneously.

Wrap it up: modular production scheduling

With the new modular software architecture of just plan it, you can easily configure your production scheduling software that fits your needs. This makes sure that you only pay what you require. Start for free ... and be sure that our software can grow with your needs.