Finite capacity planning has long been regarded as the black art of manufacturing management. Its function seems simple enough: to match the demand to the available production facilities over a certain timescale. However, the practice of utilising capacity as effectively as possible still remains an elusive goal for many companies.

Effective capacity planning requires three stages. Firstly, assuming infinite capacity, a plan is created from the demand forecast and current sales orders, taking into account manufacturing methods and delivery dates. Secondly, each resource type is analysed for capacity overloads. Then finally the plan is modified to smooth these overloads, optionally utilising any slack and producing revised plan dates, which become the available to promise (A-T-P) dates.

While many companies experience some difficulty creating their plan and identifying the overloads, even fewer have mastered the ability to re-plan effectively. This is mainly due to the complexity of modern manufacturing, where a minor change to one element of the plan can have major, sometimes unforseen, effects in other areas.

The WorldCLASS CAPACITY PLANNER provides a breakthrough in this challenging area of production control. For the first time, company planners are able to create realistic capacity plans, smooth capacity overloads and produce revised plan dates, automatically and without compromising manufacturing methods.

The Problem In Perspective

Traditionally, finite capacity planning has been performed manually or by using a spreadsheet. With the growing complexity of modern manufacturing, such methods have proved inadequate. The problem is that planning within one work centre (machine, machine group, product line and alternative line(s) etc.) is invariably affected by previous and subsequent operations.

Although MRP and ERP software tools have been partially effective in addressing the problem, they only plan to an infinite capacity and then identify capacity overloads. They do not provide a means of smoothing the load.

This leads to:


Unrealistic loadings which lead to missed due dates.
Unreliable A-T-P dates.
Longer lead times and production cycle than is necessary.
Difficulty in estimating available capacity for rush orders e.g. short notice promotions.
Extra cost of overtime of shift work.
Stock control with shelf life and storage space constraints.
Raw material availability and transport / logistics of deliveries.
Bottlenecks of machines and people.
Extra work for production planners and shift teams.