Production Planning and Control (PPC)

Production planning and control (PPC) generally involves planning the manufacturing process. Mainly it consists of the planning of routing, scheduling, dispatching, inspection and coordination, control of materials. Methods, machines, tools and operating times etc. The ultimate objective of PPC is to organize the supply and movement of materials and labor, machines utilization and related activities to bring about the desired manufacturing results in terms of quality, quantity, time and place.

Production control regulates and stimulates the orderly show of materials in the manufacturing process from the beginning to the end.

Production planning may be defined as the technique of foreseeing every step in a long series of separate operations, each action to be taken at the right time and in the right place, and each process to be performed in maximum efficiency.

There are basically four elements in PPC, which are stated as below:

1. Routing
2. Scheduling
3. Dispatching
4. Follow up for expediting

Will see each of these elements of PPC below in brief.

1. Routing:

Routing is a planning process undertaken to find the best possible path for manufacturing a particular product. It determines how work will be done and what work will be done on a product. It establishes the operations, their path and sequence and the proper machines requiring specific functions. Routing describes the flow of work in the plant band. It is related to layout considerations, temporary location for raw materials and components and material handling system.

2. Scheduling:

The next step after routing is scheduling. Scheduling is allocating resources applying the limiting factors of time and cost to perform a collection of tasks. It involves the assignment of starting and completion times for the various operations to be performed. Therefore scheduling can bring productivity to the shop floor by providing a schedule/routine for processing a set of jobs. Scheduling finds the total time needed for manufacturing a product. It also finds the time required in each machine to perform each task. The purpose of scheduling is to execute a customer’s order well in time. The essence of scheduling is to make allocation decisions about tasks’ starting and finishing times. Scheduling can be classified into single machine scheduling, flow shop scheduling and job shop scheduling.

3. Dispatching:

Dispatching is the transition from the planning phase to the action phase. In this phase, the worker is ordered to start manufacturing the product. Dispatching involves granting permission to proceed according to plans already laid down. In dispatching, orders are issued in terms of their priority.

4. Follow up for expediting:

Once production has been set in motion, it is necessary to check that it is proceeding according to the plan. Every production program involves determining the progress of work, removing bottlenecks in the flow of work and ensuring that the production operations are taking place by the plans. It helps to reveal defects in routing and scheduling, misunderstanding of orders and instruction, under loading or overloading or overloading of work etc. All problems or deviations are investigated, and remedial measures are undertaken to ensure the completion of work by the planned date.