Managing production schedules is as much planning as it is dealing with unexpected changes, tight deadlines, and varying machine capacities.
A production planning and scheduling tool helps you keep everything on track, meet customer demands, and optimize your shop floor’s efficiency.
With the right tool, you’ll have real-time visibility into your jobs, the flexibility to adjust as priorities change, and the ability to forecast capacity and delivery dates. The end result? Streamlined operations and on-time delivery every time.
Many manufacturers rely on an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system to manage overall business processes, but an ERP alone often lacks the granular detail needed for day-to-day production scheduling.
An ERP gives you a high-level view of operations, while a dynamic scheduling tool offers real-time adjustments and visibility into specific machine workloads, available capacity, and job priorities.
Using a dedicated scheduling tool alongside your ERP bridges the gap between planning and execution, helping you make faster decisions and respond to changes in real time.
If you're considering a scheduling tool, here are the key features to look for.
A good scheduling tool works hand-in-hand with your ERP. This integration enables data to flow seamlessly between the two systems. This means your production schedule is always based on accurate, up-to-date orders—without needing manual input.
With an ERP integration, you can align high-level business plans with day-to-day shop floor realities. Amper makes ERP integrations easy with a team of hands-on experts, so you can get your production schedule and business needs aligned in no time.
To maintain customer satisfaction, you need accurate delivery date projections. AI-driven scheduling tools can analyze your current progress and machine availability to predict whether you’ll meet your on-time delivery targets.
If there’s a risk of falling behind, Amper gives you the foresight to proactively adjust plans and prevent delays. If you can’t prevent a delay, you’re able to communicate with your customer way in advance, which is much better for a healthy relationship than sending that dreaded email the day after a missed delivery.
Having visibility into existing capacity helps you understand how much work your shop floor can handle at any given time. By evaluating machine availability and job load, a scheduling tool can make sure you don’t overcommit to production targets or create bottlenecks.
When you’re scheduling in Amper, it’s easy to see which machines and operators have available capacity. This will ensure your resources are optimized without overloading your machines.
The ability to adjust schedules on the fly is essential. When customer orders change or machine downtime disrupts your schedule, a dynamic scheduling tool allows you to easily rearrange priorities.
Amper’s dynamic planning lets you drag and drop jobs to different machines or priority levels when things change. Say a job is behind schedule, but you see Haas #3 doesn’t have any jobs scheduled. Simply drag the delayed job to Haas #3.
As you rearrange, delivery date projections and other insights will update accordingly. Changes will also immediately be reflected across your shop’s scoreboards and operator interface (more on this in the next sections). This flexibility ensures you can adapt quickly and keep production running smoothly.
Real-time visibility is a non-negotiable for keeping teams on the same page. A scheduling tool should provide live updates on job progress. This allows your operators and managers to see which tasks are in progress, what's coming up next, and how close you are to meeting your targets.
Amper’s live scoreboards display machine and job status to the entire shop floor. Job status will clearly identify what’s in progress and what’s up next. Any changes made to the production schedule will update on the scoreboard automatically, ensuring clear communication and efficient operations.
Your operators are at the heart of production. That’s why a scheduling tool should include dedicated operator tools to keep everyone informed and aligned. Most importantly, this should be a real-time tool. That is, any changes made in the back end should immediately update on the operators’ end.
In Copilot, Amper’s operator interface, operators see information that comes directly from the production schedule. When they log in to a machine, they’ll see what jobs are assigned to that machine and what they need to work on first.
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Copilot will automatically update as priorities, machine assignments, or schedules change. And when they’re in production, they can check on what’s coming up. No more confusion or delays—just a seamless transition between jobs.
These operator tools foster better teamwork and transparency, allowing for a more efficient and collaborative shop floor environment.
With Amper, production tracking and scheduling is simple and intuitive. You’ll have the tools you need to ensure on-time delivery, improve communication across teams, and manage your shop floor with precision. Take a look at this short demo to see how it in action!
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