So which should you choose? The reality is that you shouldn't look at the cost, so much as the functionality. There are even some templates that cost a few hundred dollars and purport to enable you to run a full-scale enterprise manufacturing organization.

There are many free production scheduling templates available online that claim they will help you to do just this.

There are often hundreds of such rules and your template will need to be able to capture them all to ensure efficient productionįree or Paid Production Scheduling Template? Production Constraints / Rules - You need to be aware of all the different production constraints or rules that pertain to the different types of products / product-feature combinations that you are producing in your production facility.Workforce Availability - You need to be able to track your workers' location, skillsets, and individualized shifts/schedules so that you are aware of labor availability at a granular level.Routings - Your template needs to be flexible enough to allow you to model the way that materials and the product travel between workstations until it is complete.This will allow the template to calculate if you have all the necessary parts available in inventory to produce your orders. Bill of Materials - Your scheduling template needs to be able to break the orders down into their Bill of Materials, or the component parts, that the orders are made of.Customer Order Entry - You will need to be able to import or enter your customer's orders so that you know exactly what products you need to produce and also when they need to be produced.Inventory Availability - You will need to be able to import or model your raw material or sub-assembly product availability so that you always know how much inventory you have on hand.You should be able to import this data into your excel spreadsheet or enter it manually. What should you look for in a production scheduling template, to make sure that you can fully model your production environment? We're talking about the inputs here. Modeling Your Production Environment with a Production Scheduling Template A production scheduling template is an excel spreadsheet that enables you to run the production scheduling processes in your manufacturing organization by coordinating the flow of materials, workers, and machines to transport, produce, and assemble your desired products.

Manufacturing order template