6/25/2020 Planned Work: An Overview

Planned Work: An Overview

Jonathan Trout, Noria Corporation
Tags: planning and scheduling
Planned work is a technique used to foresee each step in a series of separate
operations, with each step being taken at the right time and in the right place, while
each operation is performed with maximum efficiency.

What Is Planned Work?

Planned work can be defined as a technique used to foresee each step in a series
of separate operations, with each step being taken at the right time and in the right
place, while each operation is performed with maximum efficiency. In other words,
planned work gives you full control over your manufacturing process, which
ultimately leads to the ability to minimize waste, improve process flow, better
manage personnel and avoid bottlenecks.

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Author and personal time management educator Alan Lakein is famous for saying,
"Planning is bringing the future into the present, so you can do something about it
now." Put simply, be prepared. Planning and being prepared for not just potential
future occurrences but weekly and daily schedules create an efficient culture and
increase reliability.

The objectives of planned work may vary across industries, but generally
production planning aims to:

regulate inventory management;

optimize the use of production resource and processes;
organize production schedules;
ensure the availability of material and equipment during production; and
guarantee production and capacity remain aligned with forecast demand.

Specifically, in the manufacturing industry, planned work aims to ensure

procurement operates smoothly, making certain that materials and equipment are
available when needed and that production and scheduling needs are met.

Before you can begin planning work for all facets of your operation, you need a
couple of pieces of information. First, you should have a full overview of the
necessary materials, equipment and components required for your end product.
1. Product components: These consist of a bill of materials (BOM), routing (the
process of producing the item), raw material availability in stock, the cost of raw
materials and lead time, and prices from the supplier.

Secondly, you'll need to connect the dots and figure out what is required to take the
product components and turn them into the final product.
2. Labor and workstations: This will include workforce personnel and machine
availability, machine capacity and productivity, costs associated with labor, and the
machinery within each workstation.

Knowing this information gets you well on your way to a plan that not only prepares
you for the unexpected but also answers key questions like how long will it take for
my product to be ready and what will it cost. The benefits of planned work are far-
reaching and include things such as improved organization that promotes regular
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and timely delivery, better communication with suppliers for improved raw material
procurement, a reduction in inventory investment, a decrease in production costs
through increased efficiency, a better flow of all production processes, a reduction
in the amount of wasted resources and an improved bottom line.

Planned Work: A Hypothetical Example

To get a snapshot of how planned work can benefit an organization, let's take a
look at an example. When it comes to planned work and maintenance, studies
have shown that one hour of properly planned maintenance eliminates three hours
of repair work. More widely accepted is that every planned maintenance hour is
worth two breakdown hours. Knowing this, imagine your plant currently operates at
70 percent reactive maintenance to 30 percent planned maintenance. Your goal is
to achieve 80 percent planned maintenance and 20 percent reactive maintenance

A two-hour reduction in reactive maintenance occurs with the addition of one more
hour. However, personnel find they are now spending 98 hours on what used to
take 100 hours. If they continue to increase planned work incrementally, the
reduction in reactive maintenance will continue to add up until they reach at or near
80 percent planned work. The table below outlines this logic.

Total Planned Unplanned % of Planned

Maintenance Maintenance Hours Maintenance Hours Work
Hours
100 30 70 30%
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98 31 67 31.63%
96 32 64 33.33%
94 33 61 35.10%
92 34 58 36.95%
90 35 55 38.88%
88 36 52 40.90%
86 37 49 43.02%
84 38 46 45.23%
82 39 43 47.56%
80 40 40 50%
78 41 37 52.56%
76 42 34 55.26%
74 43 31 58.10%
72 44 28 61.11%
70 45 25 64.28%
68 46 22 67.64%
66 47 19 71.21%
64 48 16 75%
62 49 13 79.03%
60 50 10 83.33%

Since each planned work hour reduces unplanned work hours by two, the crew will
have only spent approximately 62 man-hours performing about 100 man-hours
worth of work by the time the plant reaches 90 percent planned work.

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The Stages of Planned Work

Planned work in the manufacturing sector doesn't always just involve maintenance.
Manufacturing planning and control plans consist of multiple stages across the
entire business.

Business planning involves striving to reach future goals across the

company. These overall goals focus on areas like profitability, lead time,
productivity, etc. Business planning ensures important goals that drive the
company are being met and efforts are being focused in the right areas.
Sales planning entails coordinating the entire sales process: sales, marketing,
product development, etc. Planned work within the sales department ensures
coordination between sales and forecasting/procurement departments,
allowing the organization to fill orders effectively based on real-time demand
and keeping orders fulfilled on time.
Master production scheduling (MPS) is the facet of planning that controls
the scheduling of individual commodities being produced for each time period.
It pertains to production, staffing, inventory, etc., and directly relates to
manufacturing planned work when the plan indicates how much of each
product will be in demand. Master production scheduling optimizes production,
deals with bottlenecks and anticipates needs by quantifying processes, parts
and other resources. MPS will be discussed a bit more in depth below.
Material requirements planning (MRP) is a production planning, scheduling
and inventory control system. These systems are intended to ensure materials
are available for production and end products are available to customers. They
also give the lowest level of material and product possible and plan
manufacturing activities, schedules and purchasing activities.
Purchase planning involves controlling the flow of purchasing materials inside
the factory. In other words, it controls the purchasing of raw materials and
makes sure the purchasing of those raw materials is done in a cost-effective
and efficient manner.

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Planned Work and Production Planning and Control

Part of planned work involves production planning and control. The British
Standards Institute lays out four stages or techniques in the process of production
planning and control. They consist of routing, scheduling, dispatching and follow-
up. The first two steps, routing and scheduling, deal with production planning, while
the last two steps, dispatching and follow-up, focus on production control.

1. Routing can be defined as figuring out

the path (route) of all work, which
includes the sequence of operations.
Routing aims to determine four things
in advance: the quantity and quality of
the product; which personnel,
machines and materials will be used;
the type, number and sequence of
manufacturing operations; and where
production will take place. In other
words, routing predetermines "how,"
"where," "what," "how much" and "with
which."
Routing provides a systematic way of
taking raw materials and turning them
into the finished product. When
planning for routing, consider human
factors such as human needs and
expectations, as well as the plant
layout, which includes what machines
do and where they are located.

2. Scheduling aims to identify the exact

amount of work to be done, prioritize
the various manufacturing operations, and determine the start and completion
date for each operation. Scheduling can be thought of as a timetable for when
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materials, parts and machines are to be available for use. This can lend itself
to multiple schedules, such as a master schedule, an operations schedule and
a daily schedule.
The goal of scheduling is to optimize time by bringing time coordination to
production planning. This, in turn, ensures on-time delivery for all products and
eliminates any idle capacity.
3. Dispatching is where the action and implementation begin to take place
based on route sheets and scheduling sheets. This is when the production
process starts to happen. Dispatching includes allotting the proper materials
and tools necessary for production; issuing orders, instructions and design
plans for the work; maintaining records of the start and completion times for
each job; moving the work from one process to the next based on the
schedule; and taking note of machine idle times.
4. Follow-up, or evaluation, is the last step in planning and control. It deals
directly with analyzing results. This includes looking for and removing defects,
delays, limitations and bottlenecks that are noticed in the production process.
Follow-up also considers the actual performance numbers and compares them
with the expected performance numbers. It keeps records of all data for future
planning and control functions.

Planned Work and Material Requirements Planning

(MRP)
Material requirements planning (MRP) is most often used during the routing and
scheduling phases of production planning and control. This planning and control
system for inventory and scheduling breaks down the master production schedule
into a more detailed schedule so you can more easily know when to purchase raw
materials and components.

Material requirements planning is a type of inventory control push system that uses
forecasting to help determine customer demand. An organization forecasts the
number of products it needs to buy, along with the number of materials required to
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produce those products. The products are then pushed to the consumer.
Contrastingly, a pull system is where the customer places an order first. As you can
imagine, push systems are vulnerable to variations in sales, making them
inaccurate and causing a shortage or surplus of inventory.
Material requirements planning is an important aspect of identifying the two types of
inventory: independent demand and dependent demand. Independent demand is
the end product, like a skateboard or a car. Dependent demand is the need for
components and parts to reach the end product, like wheels for the skateboard or
doors for the car. Dependent demand is directly determined by figuring out the
quantity of independent demand. This relationship between the end product and
the materials are calculated using MRP.

Material requirements planning puts together an orderly flow of materials,

components and parts in an order system based around the production schedule. It
also tracks variables such as purchase and sales orders, materials shortage,
expedited orders, forecasts, due dates, bill of materials (BOM) and more.

Material requirements planning consists of three basic processes:

Identify quantity requirements: This step requires you to determine what
quantity already exists in an open purchase order that is planned for
manufacturing, already committed to existing orders and forecasted. Quantity
requirements are specific to each company location and may change with time.
Run the MRP calculations: Include suggestions for materials you consider
critical, expedited and/or delayed.
Complete orders: Determine the exact location of materials for the order.

Used properly, MRP can reduce stored inventory, component shortages, overall
manufacturing costs and more. One of the biggest downsides to MRP is the
potential for human error. You must keep inventory records and BOM changes up
to date so the correct figures are input when calculating MRP.

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Planned Work and Maintenance Planning and

Scheduling (MPS)
In addition to production planning and control, planned work involves the planning
of maintenance work — maintenance planning and scheduling (MPS). Maintenance
planning is an end-to-end process intended to identify and address any possible
issues before they occur. Maintenance scheduling refers to the timing of planned
work, when the work should be done and who should perform it. Used together, the
two help control your budget through the managing of resources, helping to reduce
downtime and spare parts, improving workflow, and more.
Implementing MPS consists of six phases:

1. Setup: This involves getting your organization on board with scheduling

maintenance by exposing issues of low productivity, laying out how MPS can
solve this issue, calculating the value of productivity improvement, and
presenting the results in terms of the return on investment (ROI).
2. Define and analyze the situation: This phase has your team analyzing your
current situation and identifying any issues currently faced in executing proper
maintenance. This meeting should include representation from all levels of the
maintenance process and should outline the current MPS plan. Mapping out
your current processes highlights inefficiencies, forcing them to the surface and
directly addressing them.
3. Develop and prepare for delivery: Phase three pertains to planners and
supervisors establishing supporting documentation and process maps, as well
as defining new roles and responsibilities. It also involves role-specific training
sessions for each maintenance team member.
4. Implementation: This entails rolling out the new maintenance planning and
scheduling process and getting the team on board with it until it becomes the
new normal. This phase can take anywhere from three to six months.
5. Review: Phase five is often referred to as the "close-out" phase. It's important
to ensure the new MPS process remains intact when the training is over. This
is done by celebrating success, reviewing what is going well and what isn't,
and developing sustainable procedures.
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6. Sustain: The last phase confirms the

new MPS process is continuously
improving. Clearly define procedures;
verify new technicians are properly
trained; and ensure standardized, up-
to-date and easily accessible
documentation is in place.

Planned Work Software

Planned work is made much easier with the
continuous advancement of technology.
Planned work-specific software comes pre-
engineered to manage various aspects of
planning and scheduling and can be
integrated together to minimize data input.

Advanced planning and scheduling

(APS) software can help organizations
optimize the allocation of raw materials
and production capacity to meet
demand. Not only is APS software
good for manufacturing departments,
but it can also be leveraged by other areas of your business, such as inventory
management and procurement. Once set up, APS software has multiple
benefits. The most notable benefits include the following:
It can analyze past purchasing data and predict the times during which
raw materials cost the least.
It can automatically plan and schedule production based on the available
materials, labor and plant capacity.
It can increase the visibility within your supply chain through color-coding,
setting alerts and using things like dialog boxes for instant communication.

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Master production schedule software helps you convert data from your
manufacturing demand (forecasting, orders, dependent demand, etc.), current
work orders and availability to a production plan. Master production schedule
software can help you quickly identify resource availability and potential
conflicts to help meet production delivery dates. It can generate detailed
reports; color-code exceptions like work order, quantity or time changes; and
provide an overview of the supply, demand and running balance based on
current orders forecast or dependent demand.
Material requirements planning software is often part of an ERP package.
This single software solution lets the MRP system work directly with the entire
supply chain to quickly and accurately match availability with demand. The
MRP software automatically evaluates the availability of materials based on
the required manufacturing date while simultaneously accounting for current
demand and material lead times. Other capabilities include automated material
ordering, ideal versus existing analysis, and hard and soft allocation.
Bill of materials (BOM) software: BOM software can be integrated with APS
software (among others) to make certain the numbers for material
requirements planning are available for calculation. BOM software graphically
displays things like part numbers and the relationship between packaging,
inserted components and secondary operations, instructions, tooling
requirements, and more. Other benefits include the capability of building multi-
level bills for individual components and integrating with work order software,
resulting in accurate material, assembly and scheduling requirements being
generated.

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