Capacity Planning
Capacity Planning in ERPNext is a significant aspect that allows organizations to know whether they have the available capacity of production- according to the present work orders, workstations availability and working times- to accept and fulfill new manufacturing orders successfully. This aids in keeping the commitments of customers to be realistic and the schedules of production optimized.
Capacity planning is enabled by default in ERPNext. To configure or view the corresponding settings, go to:
1. Prerequisites
Prior to the establishment and utilization of a Work Order for production planning, the following components must be established in your ERPNext system:
- Bill Of Materials: An organized list that outlines raw materials, sub-assemblies, and operations involved in producing a finished product.
- Operation: A list of tasks or activities performed during the manufacturing process.
- Workstation: A specified location or equipment upon which operations are performed. It has features such as working time, rate per hour, and productivity.
- Work Order: A document which triggers production based on the BOM and connects all the needed resources.
These components are the basis for correct scheduling and production resource utilization.
2. How Capacity Planning Works in ERP Next
ERP Next applies the values specified in Manufacturing Settings to control and restrict production workload. Particularly, field "Capacity Planning For (Days)" specifies the planning horizon for assigning Work Orders to available Workstations.
For example, if you have set Capacity Planning For to 30 days, and taking 5 working days to make one finished good, ERPNext will only permit scheduling of a maximum of 6 Work Orders (30 ÷ 5 = 6) in that duration per workstation. The system will automatically determine this based on:
- Operation time set in the BOM.
- Calendar and availability of the scheduled Workstation.
- Work already assigned in the planning horizon.
New Work Orders can be scheduled only when there is some capacity (created by either finishing a job or by increasing the planning horizon). This guarantees a workable load distribution, prevents over-booking of equipment, and good utilization of the production capacity.
2.1 Create Work Order With Operations
In ERPNext, one needs to create Work Orders with specified Operations to allow the system to automatically generate Job Cards and track the execution time for each operation. When there are operations in a Work Order, ERPNext associates them with the specified Workstations and plans their execution based on availability and specified capacity.
Once submitted, the Work Order triggers the system to automatically create Job Cards for every operation based on the assigned Workstations' availability and working hours.
Unless the 'Allow Overtime' option is turned off in Manufacturing Settings, ERPNext will also make the Job Cards strictly within the normal working hours set in the Workstation settings. Likewise, if 'Allow Production on Holidays' is disabled, jobs will be scheduled only on working days based on the corresponding Holiday List.
This gives proper time management, proper shift assignments, and proper scheduling of production.
2.2 Workstation's Production Capacity
All Workstations in ERPNext can have a fixed Production Capacity, which defines the number of operations it can make at each given time. This directly defines the number of operations allocated to each time slot to that workstation.
For instance, if a given workstation is capable of doing 10 operations simultaneously, then the user must enter 10 as the Production Capacity.
The system will thus schedule a maximum of 10 simultaneous operations for that Workstation so that the resource utilization is optimized without burdening it. Proper setting of this field is critical for exact capacity planning as well as efficient load balancing throughout the production floor.
2.3 Job Card With Timing
When a Work Order with operations is submitted, ERPNext will automatically generate a Job Card for every operation, with timing information pre-filled. The system will calculate the Planned Start Time and Planned End Time using the operation duration specified in the Bill of Materials and the availability of the Workstation that has been assigned.
The user would just have to input the Planned Start Date for the Work Order. ERPNext would then calculate the Planned End Date for every operation based on operation time, workstation utilization, and shift timings.
This will allow the users to see the production schedule better, and plan the workloads more efficiently, where the jobs will be executed during designated working hours and in coordination with the real-time availability of machines.
2.4 Planned Start Date and End Date of Work Order
The Planned Start Date and Planned End Date of a Work Order in ERPNext are of significant importance to efficient capacity planning. These dates enable users to approximate and assign time for production to different Workstations, so the number of orders that can be reasonably completed within the existing capacity can be established.
Once these dates are established, users can track the progress of each Work Order in the Calendar view, which provides a visual representation of when operations are scheduled and workloads can be tracked. This is particularly helpful in determining production overlaps or scheduling delays. Go to:
This perspective offers a time-based grid of all Work Orders according to their scheduled timelines and assists in pre-planned production scheduling.
2.5 Capacity Planning Error
ERPNext automatically checks if a Work Order is feasible considering the workstation capacity available. When the time needed to finish an operation is more than the available Production Capacity days set in Manufacturing Settings, then the system will generate a Capacity Planning Error.
This mistake serves as an insurance policy against over-booking workloads. It can be resolved by either increasing the number of days of Production Capacity in the Manufacturing Settings to increase the scope of planning or it can be resolved by simply dropping the number of finished goods to plan in the Work Order to a point where they would match the available capacity of the workstation.
This keeps the production promises according to the available resources and eliminates the possibility that could lead to bottlenecks and delays in manufacturing.