Enterprise Resource Planning The Best Manufacturing Production Planning Software Of 2024 By Khaleel Hayes Enterprise Resource Planning 2 comments Last Reviewed: November 27, 2024 Production planning software is a manufacturing solution that helps you plan for and supervise essential workflows in the production process. Our analysts compiled a detailed list of the best production planning software with the top benefits, features and limitations. We’ll also discuss top benefits, must-have features and the best way to choose the right manufacturing planning software for your business. Compare Top Manufacturing ERP Software Leaders Compare the Best Production Planning Software Select up to 5 Products from the list below to compare Product User Sentiment ScoreStart PriceFree TrialCompany SizeDeploymentNetSuite81%Great $999Per User, Monthly Yes Small Medium Large Cloud On-Premise SAP S/4HANA Cloud87%Great $40Per User, Monthly Yes Small Medium Large Cloud On-Premise MRPEasy91%Excellent $49Per User, Monthly Yes Small Medium Large Cloud On-Premise Simio94%Excellent Undisclosed Yes Small Medium Large Cloud On-Premise Statii92%Excellent $130Monthly Yes Small Medium Large Cloud On-Premise Compare Compare Best Production Planning Software Here’s our list of the best manufacturing planning software. MRPEasy This cloud-based manufacturing production planning software serves small manufacturing plants. Its key features include purchase order management, forecasting, stock management and more. An example of MRPEasy’s dashboard. Top Benefits Boost Productivity: Chronicle orders and offer order fulfillment from the quoting phase to distribution. Transform quotes into production tasks. Obtain invoicing and shipping details to complete thorough jobs. Improve Accurate Lead Times: Boost machinery implementation and productivity with immediate reporting to check runtimes and applicable maintenance. Real-time accuracy improves on-time deliveries. Avoid Stockouts and Over-Stocking: Employ inventory overviews to prevent running out of materials, upkeep lower stock levels, automate transactions, evaluate purchase requisites and perform lot tracking, among other related inventory duties. Streamline Rescheduling Tasks: Leverage drag-and-drop capabilities to reschedule assignments while considering existing capacity and materials. Perform quick rearrangements for faster production times. Increase Mobility: Help employees follow tasks and make reports in the “My Production Plan” tab on laptops, tablets, phones and other mobile devices for better accessibility in virtually any location. Primary Features Production Scheduling: Review your expected manufacturing orders, bill of materials (BOMs), purchasing and stocking in one place, enabling you to book items in stock and promptly increase purchase orders for purchased parts. Access all order details and monitor them in calendar or Gantt chart views, Forecasting: Develop and process material estimates. Determine accurate material requirements for product building. Supervise raw material inventory quantities. Manufacturing Orders: Perform swift order drafting, editing and updating. Review order progress by order or part availability. Accounting: Access a general ledger, balance sheets, chart of accounts and a profit and loss statement. Review all manufacturing stock purchases, procurement and customer relationship management (CRM) tools in one centralized place. Purchase Order Management: Access a complete purchase order list for vendors and subcontractors. Add, revise or modify orders, review overviews and track order and payment statuses. Search and filter particular purchases. Limitations Has limited customizations. Lacks email, phone and live chat support. Price: $$$$$ Deployment: Platform: Company Size Suitability: S M L Compare Top Manufacturing ERP Software Leaders SAP S/4 HANA This production planning software consists of artificial intelligence (AI), robotic process automation (RPA), embedded analytics and more to streamline your manufacturing practices. Its key features include asset, supply chain and financial management. A preview of SAP S/4HANA’s interface. Top Benefits Manage Customizations: Implement a software developer kit (SDK) to craft extensions, customizable tools and vertical platforms. This kit allows you to develop a system that fits your company’s needs. Increase Product Quality: Use closed-loop quality management practices such as planning and operations to boost improvements company-wide. Better quality means fewer fines, hazards and other costly consequences. Govern Sales: Initiate variable compensation programs via incentive and commission management. Supervise sales performance and upkeep tactical strategies. Organize Infrastructures: Optimize space utilization, fees and occupancies with active lease agreement management, investments and construction designs. You may also review, preserve and renovate infrastructures. Boost Credit Ratings: Allocate extra funding and better payment conditions to strengthen supplier credit standings. Primary Features Manufacturing: Organize every stage of your operations, from material requirements to inventory. Modify real-time business, supplier and plant floor data. Material Requirements Planning (MRP): Oversee stockouts and develop automatic procurement proposals for purchasing and production. Use production planners to ensure the availability of procured or produced materials at the ideal time. Inspection Planning: Improve the quality of your products by sending quality-related information across your business. You may also pinpoint potential risks and defects in the early development stages. Supply Chain Management: Evaluate business rules, material accessibility and allocation policies to determine consumers’ product availability and promise dates. Control warehouse activities and processes with the best picking, packing and shipping methods to implement asset use and total output. Financial Management: Work with accounting and financial close operations, treasury and risk processes, collaborative workflows and more. Evaluate profit and margin contributions via real-time reporting, predictive analytics and merged business planning for optimal revenue garnering. Limitations Limited customization. Difficult de-migration process. A time-consuming implementation. Price: $$$$$ Deployment: Platform: Company Size Suitability: S M L Compare Top Manufacturing ERP Software Leaders Simio This manufacturing production planning software caters to all companies. The cloud version authorizes you to share simulation and scheduling results online. You can generate tailored reports and interactive management dashboards to communicate a plan’s effects. An example of Simio’s scheduling tools. Top Benefits Save Money: Use the free, accessible version of this system. This mode has limited features. Reduce Engineer Demand: Develop simulated models without engineering help. These modules allow the engineering team to focus on other essential tasks. Strengthen Centralization: Manage tools, visualizations, reports and other capabilities in one centralized platform for better usability. Improve Product Testings: Conduct simulated or realistic product testing situations in a digital atmosphere to save physical prototype expenses. Gain In-Depth Support: Visit the online user group for 24/7 technical support and querying for faster responses. Primary Features Simulation Models: Work with the advanced planning and scheduling (APS) method to create detailed schedules in an environment where machines function correctly, process times are consistent and materials punctually arrive at your plant. The other technique analyzes and predicts hidden schedule risks. Simulation and Scheduling: Conduct risk-free predictions, plans and improvements. Google Warehouse Integration: Merge this system with Google Warehouse to obtain a free library of 3D symbols. 3D Object-Based Modeling: Conduct step-by-step, 3D, object-based models. Risk-Based Scheduling: Estimate issues with probabilistic analysis. This tool guarantees workflows meet specific goals and deplete risks to limit fees. Limitations Experiences bugs and lag. Needs additional resources to ensure clients gain product knowledge. Requires many clicks and lacks other scripting capabilities. Price:$$$$$ Deployment: Platform: Company Size Suitability: S M L Compare Top Manufacturing ERP Software Leaders NetSuite This production planning software serves businesses of all sizes and various industries, including manufacturing, retail, eCommerce and more. Its key features are financial planning, supply chain management and order management. A preview of NetSuite’s main homepage. Top Benefits Make Better Business Decisions: Access and apply BI tools to intertwine data with visual analytics for better decision-making. Ensure Company Goal Alignment: Obtain a thorough cloud customization environment to ensure this program aligns with your business needs or craft new applications. Manage workflow management, scripting, analytics and other tools to streamline production. Enhance Workforce Accuracy: Streamline headcounts, salaries, compensation planning and other workforce planning protocols. Affix company needs and requirements with the workforce to fully organize and meet production goals. Improve Data Evaluations: Utilize Excel to model, analyze and perform bi-directional integrations to slice and dice information accordingly. This data organization offers more patterns and bottleneck insights. Strengthen Supply Chain Performance: Establish user-defined alerts for real-time supply chain updates. Find and rectify obstacles for smoother on-time deliveries. Primary Features Forecasting: Determine and estimate clientele demand based on historical market, open opportunities, and manual or imported sales estimates. Use moving average, linear regression or average seasonal calculations to generate forecasts after reviewing weekly or monthly reviews. Planning: Use one module for MRP, capacity and financial planning. Explore BOMs, monitor inventory and safety stock levels, evaluate demand and study supplies before creating orders. Production Management: Gain production workflow transparency with sales orders, work order processing, routing and scheduling, order fulfillment and product costing tools. Predict demand based on historical data, open opportunities, and manually entered or imported sales forecasts. Supply Chain Management: Obtain real-time updates on your key supplier, inventory and procurement indicators. Manage stock item fulfillment and costs from factories to stores with inbound-outbound management, distribution management, warehousing, inventory management and more. Compliance and Controls: Ensure your practices align with multiple standards, rules and government regulations such as the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Limitations Slow implementation times. Has a steep learning curve. Doesn’t offer free trials. Price: $$$$$ Deployment: Platform: Company Size Suitability: S M L Compare Top Manufacturing ERP Software Leaders Statii This cloud-based manufacturing planning software serves small and medium-sized manufacturers to control all business tasks. Some features include invoicing, inventory management, time management and production tracking. An example of Statii’s scheduling capabilities. Top Benefits Raise Operation Awareness: Manage dashboards with red and black indicators for late or outstanding goods for improved visibility. Use filters to craft multiple reports that you may export for additional analyses. Perform Better Customer Evaluations: Create value or late invoices and payment performance and compare customers to agreed credit conditions, operator efficiency and other reports to weed out the best clients. Develop Better Estimates: Build quotes and duplicate projected fee breakdowns. Gain information for inventory objects, bought-in merchandise, internal operations and budget forecasts. Save Money: Use Statii Lite, the free version, in small manufacturing areas and govern critical business aspects, including customers, suppliers, quotations and an email platform. Receive Swift Answers: Implement this system’s live chat support to ask questions and receive quick, helpful answers. Primary Features Production Tracking: Identify and resolve issues that slow down your manufacturing plant. Track progress to ensure operations meet total capacity. Production Control: Record your entire process, including obtaining orders, allocating work and sending the completed item to your clients. Scheduling: Plan activities for various machinery, materials, tools and labor needed for a project. Track several required aspects to generate products and effectively finish all production stages. Time Management: Utilize job and route card components to gauge the time needed to produce specific outputs of products. Customer and Supplier Data: Share customer and supplier data across your company, including contact info and spending values. Limitations You can only complete shift management via workarounds. Lacks mobile applications. Price: $$$$$ Deployment: Platform: Company Size Suitability: S M L Compare Pricing for Manufacturing ERP Software Leaders How We Choose Products Our team of writers and analysts at SelectHub is committed to giving you the best recommendations based on our data. To make our list, products had to meet two criteria: Closely match the topic Earn a top-5 analyst score in our selection platform Our analyst scores are based on an in-depth research process using primary and secondary sources. This includes SelectHub Analyst Briefings, direct communication with vendors, and reviewing materials such as user reviews, product brochures, specification sheets, case studies, user manuals, and technical documentation. Our platform’s Scoring Engine processes the research and computes the analyst score. The score also factors in platform settings such as industry and company size. Learn more about our research methodology and editorial standards Key Features When you shop for new solutions, you must have a wishlist of features needed for your facility. Our free requirements template can help you browse and select the ideal functions for your production planning software. Sam Gupta, principal consultant of ElevatIQ, spoke to us about the core features of standalone manufacturing planning software. If standalone, then the core features would be the ability to build schedules based on the raw job data, [the] ability to sequence jobs if required for the respective industries, the ability to make ad-hoc changes after finalizing the original schedule, [the] ability to schedule based on different scheduling strategies depending upon the need of the business, and perform what-if scenarios.” Diane L. Garcia, president of Lorraine Consulting LLC, discussed with SelectHub the importance of having visual aspects in an ideal production planning software. The software should provide visual insights like showing you what items will go past due or which items are not meeting your production schedule. Maybe if they’re highlighted in red or it’s visually showing the user there is an issue and they kinda have to interfere and proactively try to address this issue.” Garcia also discussed how in-depth reporting could help you alter your production practices: “Perhaps the software could provide you a view of your capacities. Are you over capacity? Are you under capacity in certain areas?” Lisa Anderson, founder and president of LMA Consulting Group Inc., discussed sequencing similar items during production as an essential capability. If you think about it in terms of colors or flavors, you would want to run all the dark flavors together. You would want to not run them before you go to a light flavor. So basically, the ability to tie together like items in a production run, and know how much time you’ll need for that category of items.” Anderson also elaborated on the importance of what-if scenario planning. You want to be able to see, ‘Well, what if I have a second shift? How can I rearrange my production plan? Can I find a more efficient way to do it where I can minimize waste or maximize efficiencies? What if I have this situation or that situation?'” Here’s a helpful list of the best production planning software features to consider when browsing vendors and resellers. Sequencing: Pair similar items for less confusion. You must separate different pieces, like washing clothes. If you mix light and dark garments, you’ll get unwanted results. Capacity Planning: Assess and estimate the resources needed for particular jobs. For example, determine what machinery and employees are necessary to complete 50 sets of golf clubs in one workday. What-If Analysis: Try different situations to predict the best outcomes. For example, how many employees will produce 100 leather seats for office chairs? Will you need overtime, or will you need to divide the total by numerous shifts? Which options provide higher output? Demand Planning: Perform demand forecasting with in-depth archived data analytics to draft thorough reports. These reports will help you make better decisions. Effectively make inventory plans to avoid stockouts or overstocking. You may also determine how to effectively plan for certain sales like back-to-school, Black Friday, holidays and more. Inventory Management: Maintain real-time inventory levels and craft accurate future projections. Know what’s available and set minimum levels to avoid stockouts. For example, you may own a toy factory. Inventory management tools can help you set notifications for when stock objects reach the minimum amount to avoid stockouts and for faster replenishment plans. Order Management: Order management is a system that helps you supervise client orders from start to finish. Conduct robust order tracking, forecasting, automatic order detail distribution and more. For example, you receive an order for 20 toy cars. Order management can track all production stages and alert you of any bottlenecks for faster on-time deliveries. MRP: MRP systems allow you to develop practical stock item requirements for specific production plans. Execute MRP in four steps. Develop estimated required materials, allocate inventory, schedule productions and monitor workflows. Some key advantages of MRP include saving time, boosting customer relationships, aligning purchases with schedules and more. Compare Top Manufacturing ERP Software Leaders Primary Benefits Manufacturing planning software comes with numerous benefits for better practices. These benefits range from increasing on-time deliveries and maintaining inventory to boosting flexibility. Strengthen On-Time Deliveries Automate processes, allocate the necessary resources and coordinate departments to ensure you make consistent on-time deliveries. Better deliveries mean happier customers and higher revenue. Maintain Inventory and Waste Avoid overstocking and understocking to ensure you have the correct inventory items. You reduce wasted or expired materials. You also work with real-time details and notifications to ensure you use all the suitable materials. Increase Productivity Use automatic employee, machinery and workflow scheduling to save time, boost efficiency and increase to-market times. Automating recurring tasks allows you to focus on other high-priority tasks, increasing efficiency. Boost Flexibility Address unexpected changes or monkey wrenches in demand, facilities, routes and more quickly. Designate workflows in different facilities, take alternative roads and formulate other substitute strategies to meet your objectives. Garcia explained that manufacturing production planning software can help you make better decisions. It’s better decision-making because you’ll be able to make better sense of all this data and information together. If you do the what-if scenarios, you’ll be able to respond quicker [and] have quicker information.” Upkeep Documentation Formulate multiple files for raw material expenses, shipping fees and labels. Generate invoices, analytical reports, charts, graphs and other necessary documentation. More documentation and files mean more records for auditing purposes. Compare Top Manufacturing ERP Software Leaders How To Choose the Right Production Planning Software Several approaches are available when choosing the best manufacturing production planning software. Some consultants opt for 12 steps, while others prefer five steps. SelectHub offers a nine-step methodology called Lean Selection to find the best software for any company size or industry. Here’s a brief rundown of each step. Establish: Determine why you need new software. Collaborate: Unite an internal software selection team of stakeholders, department leaders, IT staff, end users and more. Define: Discuss must-have software features and requirements with your team. Distribute: Compare and contrast vendors and how they measure up to your requirements list. Justify: Determine if you need new software, add-on modules for your current solution or to end your software selection hunt. Prove: Ask vendors for demos, use cases or proofs-of-concept (POCs) to demonstrate their software features. Rank: Organize vendors according to their demo scores and total cost of ownership (TCO). You should have at least two to three potential programs that best align with your company’s needs. Negotiate: Receive and discuss agreements with your vendor. Seek additional legal advice if necessary. Repeat this step with another vendor on this list if you can’t reach a compromise. Sign: Review and sign your vendor contract. Set up a solid implementation plan. You can also look at customer reviews of potential systems or seek advice from colleagues about how they found the proper application. You can also read customer reviews of potential systems or ask colleagues how they found the proper application. Gupta stressed the importance of setting goals for your software selection. Identify the scope of production planning software, what your goal is and if other teams are willing to cooperate with you to transition their processes to a new system. If that’s not possible, the only choice you might have is a best-of-breed option, which might not produce the same results, or might not be as affordable, as an integrated option. But it’s better than manually compiled schedules and processes.” Anderson explained getting swept up by all the features and capabilities of a new manufacturing planning software is easy. But you have to resist the temptation. Don’t worry about all the bells and whistles because implementing them could be very expensive and won’t necessarily lead to any improved results. Make sure that you can prove how the software will handle your requirements without getting carried away in all the sales hype.” FAQs What is production planning software? Production planning software is a solution that helps you manage and plan manufacturing workflows from start to finish. What’s the difference between production planning software and production scheduling software? Production planning focuses on executing operations and workflows, while production scheduling helps you estimate workflows according to different circumstances. What are some key features of production planning software? Some ideal features include: Sequencing Capacity planning What-If analysis Inventory management MRP Demand planning Order management And more! How should I choose the production planning software for my company? Establish company requirements, ask potential vendors for demos and avoid falling for extra bells and whistles. You can also consider SelectHub’s nine-step Lean Selection methodology. Establish Collaborate Define Distribute Justify Prove Rank Negotiate Sign Compare Top Manufacturing ERP Software Leaders Next Steps Finding the right production planning software for your manufacturing needs is no walk in the park. But the right system can increase productivity, profits and customer satisfaction. Need more help? Our in-depth, free comparison report allows you to pick and choose from numerous solutions for an effective oranges-to-oranges review. How has production planning software streamlined your manufacturing workflows? What requirements are you looking for in a new solution? Let us know in the comments. SME Contributors Sam Gupta has been an ERP thought leader in the digital transformation space for nearly two decades, primarily focusing on financial systems and ERP. Sam is rated as the #1 thought leader in the ERP category and #15 in the digital transformation category on Thinkers 360. He is also among the top 100 thought leaders across all categories. He has been part of large transformation initiatives for Fortune 500 corporations but now spends his time consulting with SMEs as a Principal Consultant at ElevatIQ. Sam regularly speaks at industry conferences and contributes his experiences through many popular blogs and publications. He also hosts a podcast called WBSRocks, focused on business growth through digital transformation and ERP where he interviews top influencers and executives focused on digital transformation. Lisa Anderson is the founder and president of LMA Consulting Group Inc., a consulting firm specializing in manufacturing strategy and end-to-end supply chain transformation that maximizes the customer experience and enables profitable, scalable, dramatic business growth. Ms. Anderson has been named a Top 40 B2B Tech Influencer by Arketi Group, a 50 ERP Influencer by Washington Frank and ranked in the top 46 most influential in Supply Chain by SAP. Diane L. Garcia, President of Lorraine Consulting, LLC that’s based out of Phoenix AZ, is an end-to-end supply chain management expert who helps manufacturing and distribution companies improve their businesses. Always on the cutting edge, Diane takes a hands-on approach to deliver best practices worldwide. Diane specializes in the design and implementation of Sales, Inventory & Operations Planning (SIOP), which enables proactive decision-making, growth, and profitability. With a mechanical aptitude and years of technical automotive expertise, Diane can unravel business complexities into segments, categories and processes that drive progress. 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