Planning

From real demand to a plan the floor can keep

Build-to-stock planning starts from a forecast and hopes. To-order planning starts from the demand you actually have: quoted jobs, released orders and contract schedules. Each capability below is field-editable as its own card above; this section goes one level deeper into how each one actually works.

Material Requirements Planning

MRP nets demand and supply across sites and suggests planned orders to buy or build, connected to work orders and purchasing on the same backbone. Family BOMs group items with a demand relationship so forecasting runs at the family level rather than the part level, and what-if simulation runs a full MPS pass without committing it.

Job Order Pegging

Every material requirement and purchase traces to the specific job that generated it, so a shortage is never anonymous: it has a job number, a customer and a due date, and project-related items are only made available to the demand that actually needs them.

Capacity Requirements Planning

CRP analyzes scheduled and planned load against plant resource capacity by work center and time period, flagging overload or idle conditions before they become a missed date. Critical resources run under finite constraint while non-critical ones run infinite, and rough-cut capacity planning models the impact of a new product before it is ever quoted.

Purchasing and Supplier Collaboration

Requisitions convert to purchase orders or to RFQs distributed to multiple vendors at once, integrated with Accounts Payable, cost accounting and inventory to track materials, cost and activity in one place. The Supplier Portal extends the same process to vendors directly: online quotes, updated price schedules, lead times and delivery promises, so a late supplier response updates the plan instead of a phone call.

Inventory and Lot/Serial Traceability

Inventory Control manages traceability from the part level down to individual serial or lot reference across every warehouse location, with cycle counting, ABC classification and standard, FIFO, LIFO or average costing by warehouse. Lot and serial tracking meets CFR 21 Subpart 11 traceability requirements, tracing every lot-controlled part through every transaction it was involved in, forward and backward, which matters most the day a recall makes it matter.

Finite-Capacity Scheduling

Schedule Advisor adds graphical, finite-capacity scheduling with capable-to-promise on top of MRP's material plan, so a delivery date reflects both what can be bought and what the shop can actually run. At the front of the funnel, available-to-promise gives order entry dates grounded in supply rather than optimism.

Common questions about planning in Visibility ERP

What is the difference between MRP and finite-capacity scheduling?

MRP answers what to buy and build, and when it is needed. Finite-capacity scheduling answers whether the shop can actually do it by then, given machines, shifts and everything else promised. Visibility ERP runs both: MRP plans the material, Schedule Advisor reconciles the plan with real capacity.

Does MRP work for engineer-to-order manufacturing?

Yes, when it plans from real demand instead of a forecast. Visibility ERP's planning was built for work where no two jobs are alike: demand-driven planned orders, job order pegging and what-if simulations before a promise is made.

What is job order pegging?

Every material requirement and purchase traces to the specific job that generated it. When a delivery slips, you know immediately which jobs and customers are exposed.

How fast can planning go live?

Planning goes live with the rest of the system in a typical four to six month implementation, run by our in-house team since 1988 without a failure.