title = "Production Planning and Control Overview"

content = """
Production planning and control (PPC) at Ridgecrest Metalworks is the discipline that translates customer orders and forecast demand into a feasible schedule of manufacturing activities, allocates resources efficiently, and tracks actual progress against the plan. Without effective PPC, facilities operate reactively—firefighting daily crises instead of executing a coherent strategy.

**Planning hierarchy.** Ridgecrest uses a three-level planning structure:

1. **Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP):** Monthly, cross-functional review of 3–12 month demand and capacity. Outcomes include decisions about overtime, subcontracting, capital investment, and inventory pre-build. Participants: sales, operations, finance, and supply chain leadership.

2. **Master Production Schedule (MPS):** Weekly or biweekly schedule of specific finished goods or semi-finished assemblies to be produced within a 4–8 week planning horizon. Drives material requirements planning (MRP).

3. **Detailed Shop Floor Scheduling:** Daily or shift-level assignment of specific work orders to specific machines and operators. This is what each cell supervisor manages directly.

**Material Requirements Planning (MRP).** MRP is a SAP-driven calculation that explodes the MPS through the bill of materials to determine what materials need to be purchased or fabricated, in what quantities, and by when. MRP generates planned purchase orders for procurement and planned production orders for the shop floor. Planners review and release these planned orders after checking for exceptions.

**Roles in PPC.** The production planner owns the MPS and MRP process. Cell supervisors are responsible for executing the detailed schedule and reporting actual completions, downtime, and scrap. Operators report output at each operation through the ERP terminal or paper traveler. Planners use this real-time data to reschedule and rebalance the load as needed.

**Key documents.** The production schedule (printed or digital board), shop traveler, and work order are the primary execution documents. All three must be consistent with each other. When changes occur—due to material shortages, machine breakdowns, or engineering changes—the planner updates the schedule and issues revised travelers or change notifications before production continues.

PPC performance is reviewed daily in the production meeting and weekly in the operations review. Missed schedule adherence requires documented root cause and corrective action.
"""

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