Production plan and schedule

Toscana Systems has more than 20 years of experience developing software solutions for the graphics industry. Their specialized ERP&CRM cloud solution for the print and sign industry is based on modern technologies and thorough industry knowledge. Through a series of educational articles, they will point out the most common problems of printing houses and offer innovative solutions.

The production plan is one of the critical factors of the business. Regardless of similarities, every printing house has different ways of organizing and monitoring work orders. Considering that Toscana Systems has been in the printing industry for a very long time, we have used the best ideas and advice from our partners and clients, with which we have created a plan and production schedule that is clear, subject to any changes in the workflow (because we all know that happens every day), adapted for production and field workers (phone screen) so that they waste as little time as possible on the system and devote themselves to their work, and is also adapted for production managers and management in order to have complete control and a clear overview at any moment.

In the Toscana system, we divide the work order into work steps, i.e., production phases, depending on what is being printed. As for the working steps, i.e., the production phases, each printing house creates them according to its needs, and they usually consist of graphic preparation, assembly, printing, finishing, and packaging. Also, some printing houses make different steps for each printing technology or even for each machine. For each production phase, the responsible employees, the deadline, and the estimated task duration are determined, and such a plan can be saved as a template. This speeds up the creation of each subsequent work order.

Employees log in to the work steps via a barcode scanner. The system records their time spent on the task, and by logging in to the next task, they are automatically logged out of the previous one. In addition to time, it is also possible to enter the material used to precisely compare the selling price and the cost of production, i.e., net profit.

The most crucial information and shortcuts to all important system parts connected to a specific order are placed on the display itself, which we call the production flow chart (shown in the picture). Thus, above the table view, there is a detailed filter list that allows you to separate each segment of production, for example, a display of the occupation of particular machines, departments, or employees, a display of the same printing materials, but according to different work orders in order to combine them in the printing process to save time, and so on.

Of course, this is only a tiny part of filtering and viewing production possibilities. On the overview of a work order, there are already mentioned shortcuts that include: direct access to the project from which the order was created, access to work order files, confirmations from the client, orders of goods, reservation of goods from the warehouse, client card, etc.

Calendar display

Also, from the table view, next to the responsible person’s name and next to a specific machine or work unit, there is a calendar icon with which, depending on the selection, we access the calendar display for a period of 7 days. The occupation of the selected machine, employee, or work unit is visible there. Of course, once the calendar is opened, it is possible to combine the display of information so that more employees, machines, and other important information that we want to see in the calendar can be selected. It is important to note that the status of an individual order is immediately visible at first glance, and each status has a corresponding color. Orange indicates that the order is pending, blue indicates that it is being processed, and green indicates that it is completed. Individual work steps have the same statuses and color markings. This way, production can be monitored in real-time from any device and location. In addition, it is known at any time precisely what stage a particular work order is in and which employee is working on a particular work step.