A Master Production Schedule (MPS) is a plan for individual products to be manufactured in each individual time period.
It is a critical tool in the production planning process for a company that makes standard products via a Make-to-Stock production mode.
Production planning is a circular process involving:
1. General planning, which produces an MPS. I.e. When and what SHOULD be produced
2. Detailed scheduling, which subsequently delivers a production schedule. I.e. When, where, how, and from whom CAN the products be produced?
3. Return to step 1, and repeat until satisfied.
The goal of the Master Production Schedule (MPS) is to balance supply and demand by period, where your production is the ‘supply’, and the forecast or confirmed sales is the ‘demand’.
The plan indicates by period, the extent to which the product will be demanded in terms of quantity, what the starting and ending inventory positions are, and the planned quantities to be produced.
Crucially, the MPS itself does not address the individual tasks of production, such as operations and sequences, workstation capacities, workers, materials availability and lead times, etc.
These are the focus of production scheduling (i.e. planning out a realistic schedule for each worker and machine).
Performing this in Excel is not easy, if not impossible at all. We recommend using Master Production Schedule Software.
Accurate automatic planning and realistic production schedule. Reschedule dynamically by just dragging and dropping manufacturing orders and operations in the calendar or Gantt chart.
Inventory management, stock movements, batch and serial number tracking. Set and optimize stock levels and avoid stock-outs. Have a clear history of your stock operations.
Just a few clicks to calculate the product cost and the best delivery time. Send quotations and invoices, prepare shipments. Send confirmed customer order to production. Track the sales process all the way from quotation right down to delivery using a simple pipeline view.
Simple environment for line workers to follow tasks on desktop or mobile device. Real-time shop floor reporting. Real-time overview of the need and availability of human resources.
Manage purchases and raise pre-filled purchase orders with a single click. Vendors, prices, lead times, it’s all there. Manage your supply chain with the help of accurate statistics. Forecast your procurement needs.
Enjoy clear visibility to your business performance. Follow your cash flow, balance sheet and profit/loss in real time. Understand the profitability of the business, and more.
Development Director, Randr
You guys are truly the best and the software is such a lifesaver for small companies like ours. Also just a note, our ISO auditors really liked everything that MRPeasy had. Everything is documented within the system!! And we do not need any additional systems.
CEO, Sox Trot
Best value in the small manufacturing space by far. With MRPeasy, our capacity doubled. It streamlined our production, and procurement so well that I’m now able to spend a lot more time on growth and sales. Extremely comprehensive and works seamlessly with Xero and Shopify.
CEO, Anicell Biotech
MRPeasy gives us the ability to track all of our manufacturing lot costs right down to the individual serial number of our products. MRPeasy provides the software as a remote service and has never been unavailable to us except in very rare maintenance windows.
MRPeasy is a simple yet powerful Manufacturing ERP system that helps small manufacturers organize production. Just sign up to test MRPeasy, select the features plan that meets your requirements and access additional functionality as you grow your business.
No upfront costs
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