Schedule, plan, load. Instead of catching up in spreadsheets.
The planning sits directly on bills of material, stock and capacity. Material and capacity requirements are derived rather than maintained.
The four building blocks
What production planning and control covers.
- 01Scheduling
Which order goes into production when, and with which material.
- 02Capacity planning
Work centres and utilization set against demand.
- 03Material requirements
Open orders, planned production, stock and purchase orders in flight, reconciled automatically.
- 04Quality assurance
Inspection steps in the flow rather than as an afterthought.
- 05Feedback
Actual times and quantities back into the planning.
The MRP run is the heart of manufacturing planning.
ERPNext reconciles open sales orders, planned production, available stock and purchase orders already in flight, and proposes what to make and what to buy, with dates attached.
If a supplier moves a delivery or a customer pulls their date forward, the next run recalculates the requirement. Minimum stock, lead times and lot sizes all feed into the proposal.
What to clarify before planning.
- How deep are the bills of material?
Multi-level structures decide how far the requirement is calculated through.
- How binding are the dates?
Firm commitments need different planning from indicative dates.
- Which work centres are the bottleneck?
Capacity planning pays off first where it actually jams.
- How does feedback get into the system?
Without actual data, any plan remains an assumption.
Frequently asked questions about planning.
What is production planning and control?
It covers the planning and control of manufacturing across four building blocks: scheduling, capacity planning, material requirements planning and quality assurance. It ensures the right orders are made with the right material at the right time.
What is the difference between PPC and ERP?
An ERP is the overall system for the whole business. PPC is the part of it that plans and controls manufacturing. In ERPNext, PPC is a module within the ERP.
Does ERPNext plan material and capacity together?
Yes, MRP and work-centre or capacity planning interlock.
Can work orders be scheduled?
Yes, including operations and dependencies.
Do I need all of manufacturing in ERPNext for this?
Planning lives on connected data such as bills of material and stock. We start where the lever is biggest.
Planning that recalculates on every change of date.
In the Setup Check we see whether your master data already carries the planning, and where the first step sits.
Request a Setup Check