Automated production planning

In this issue, the company Toscana Systems presents one of the latest solutions they developed by upgrading the already existing production planning module within the Toscana system. The solution was created due to clients' increasingly frequent requests and needs. It is about automated production planning and the creation of work orders.

Production planning in printing houses is a challenge in itself. It involves calculating various elements that must be considered to obtain a tentative deadline for the work order with all the essential details. We are talking, of course, about the schedule and occupancy of employees (depending on the department and the level of professional education), the schedule and occupancy of machines and work units, as well as filtering by type of material being printed and estimating the duration of work of each production step with material consumption.

Work plan and material reservation

By using automated print price calculation (we covered this topic in Print Magazine in issue 44/2021) to create offers, each item entered into the offer (e.g., book, business cards, flyers, etc.) gets its own pre-calculation from which it is possible to generate a work order with estimated costs and duration. It is also possible to check the production plan, that is when the order could be finished. In addition, the system recognizes which production steps are required for printing, for example, books: graphic preparation, machine preparation, printing, finishing, and packaging, and assigns a responsible person for each of these steps (subject to change) the estimated duration of each step.

After that, when the production plan is accessed, the system checks which orders are in progress and which are planned and suggests when this work order could be in production. This is also very useful as feedback for clients who often ask for an estimated date or a delivery deadline already when creating the offer. You can check the plan in a few clicks and respond to the client immediately.

The proposed dates for the work order and individual production steps can be confirmed and changed manually if necessary. Automatic reservation of goods is also possible. It is enough to open the “order and reservation of goods” module from the pre-calculation.

At that moment, the system recognizes which materials are needed for production. At the same time, it checks the stock availability in the warehouse and suggests the reservation or order of goods if some are not in stock.

Why use this solution?

The advantages of such a structured business process significantly reduce administration, speed up, and facilitate employees' daily tasks. The offer is created through an automatic print price calculator. Each item receives its own pre-calculation from which it is possible to immediately see the production plan and create a complete work order with all steps and reserved material in just one click.