Production is a fundamental cog of any manufacturing business. But running a smooth production line can be challenging. The truth is, without a clear understanding of when & how specific products are manufactured, you run the risk of over- or understocking. To help you optimize activity & reduce costs & waste, we offer a smart Excel solution, ensuring targeted product schedules, smooth operations, efficient resource allocation & timely order fulfillment.
What’s a Production Schedule?
A production schedule is a detailed plan that outlines the tasks, timelines, schedules, and resources required to produce goods, products, or services efficiently. It serves as a roadmap, coordinating various operations to ensure that all processes are executed in the correct order and within the desired timeframe. Businesses use a schedule to identify potential bottlenecks and maintain a smooth workflow.
But before we delve into the core offerings of our template, it’s important to clarify which scheduling technique we used…
Finite Production Scheduling
There are many reliable techniques used by PMO professionals to streamline production in a time & resource-efficient way. In finite production scheduling techniques (used in our design), production is scheduled based on available production capacity.
Our template gauges capacity using the following metrics:
- Raw material quantities (Required/In-stock/Remaining)
- Number of shifts (Day/Night)
- Workstations
What’s a Workstation?
Physical locations or clearly defined areas where specific manufacturing operations are carried out. They can be machines, assembly tables, building floors, or different facilities altogether. In our template, it is only possible to assign one product to one workstation per shift.
Why You Need a Template!
Let’s say you are a site manager or a shift supervisor. As long as you know your way around some basic Excel, you can use our template to answer many business-critical questions, such as:
- What needs to be produced?
- How much raw material is needed to meet product demand?
- What raw materials do you have left after each completed batch of products?
- What deadlines do you have to meet for each product order?
- What shifts or workstations are already scheduled and available for assigning products?
- Who is leading operations for each product at a specific workstation?
Having this information available to you in an interactive, user-friendly format makes it easier to plan production activity at particular workstations. By planning, you can effectively track the usage of materials, machines, and labor as production moves along.
Here are some benefits of using a smart scheduling sheet like ours:
- Minimize idle time
- Reduce wastage of raw materials
- Avoid product shortages or overbooking
- Allocate & track resources
- Ensure materials are available just in time without overstocking
- Meet production deadlines & goals
- Monitor production progress against the schedule
- Optimize production flow
You might also be interested in…
If you work in construction, we recommend using a special construction schedule to review and update your team on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Use our professionally designed template to boost team morale & maximize work efficiency!
Here’s a quick round-up of the most useful features of our template…
Core Template Features
We deliberately designed our template to be as simple & generic as possible, so it can be quickly customized for different industries and across product lines or workflows. Having that said, we have also preprogrammed useful features to make scheduling easier.
Dynamic filtering
When it comes to scheduling, managing, or tracking production, there’s a lot to consider. For a finite model, you must be able to filter information by four key parameters: product category, shift, available raw material, and workstation. By using a dynamic, as opposed to a simple, linear filter, our spreadsheet gives real-time control, visibility, and flexibility over resources, orders, and capacity constraints.
Basic excel functionalities
We use formulas and macros to automate calculations for you so you don’t have to do the maths manually (like, calculating material requirements, shift coverage, variance in planned vs. actual costs, etc.)
Editable drop-downs
To help you standardize information, such as type of shift, workstation, product status, product priority, quality assurance, etc., we use drop-down menus containing industry-standard options for you to choose from. Adjust and personalize our default settings using the Configuration Sheet provided.
Gantt-style calendar
Based on the Start & End Dates manually added in the Master Sheet, we auto-generate a Gantt-style Calendar to help you visualize the production for each product. Once a production deadline is met, a flag is shown as a milestone achieved. Need a more advanced Gantt chart with tasks and milestones tracking? Try our free Gantt chart with calendar template to manage your resources and costs in real time.
List view
By listing all production-related data, such as product specifications, deadlines, associated costs, materials, and labor in one single list, you can get a quick snapshot of your production schedule.
Status & priority assigner
Our template allows you to update the status & priority level of each product order in real-time. You can use these features as they are (or customize them) to update stakeholders on how you are strategizing workflow & optimizing production activity.
How to Use Our Template
Below, I explore each sheet in-depth and discuss how they are synced to create an interactive database of scheduling information that helps you plan & manage production.
Step 1: Get Started!
First up, download the file & macro-enable it so you can benefit from the functionalities we have programmed into it (Here’s how…)
Open the file in Excel. You now have access to 4 separate sheets:
- Master Schedule
- Workstation Sheet
- Product Sheet
- Configuration Sheet
Step 2: Open the Configuration Sheet
Personalize our template using the Configuration Sheet provided. You can tweak around our default drop-down menus to:
- Update the status categories to track production in real-time (e.g., In Progress, Pending Review, or Overdue). In a team setting, this enhances communication and supports smoother coordination of production tasks.
- Assign a priority level to each product order (say, High, Medium, and Low). Orders high on the list appear in red cells for more visibility.
- Customize our default list of workstations to your unique manufacturing process or industry standards. This helps you coordinate production logistics while ensuring efficient use of floor space and equipment.
- Create a list of products you will be scheduled for production during each quarter of the year. Pinning each product supports accurate inventory planning and reporting throughout production.
- Assign each product to an operator responsible for its production. By listing all operators, you create points of accountability across shifts or workstations.
- Customize the default shift schedule (Night/Day) to your work timings. This helps spread work out more evenly over time and makes it easier to plan your production schedule.
Step Three: Specifying Product Details
Now, let’s get into the specifics of what we are doing here – creating new products to meet market demand. Now, for each product you schedule for production, you will need two values to start with:
- Average Raw Material per Piece: This refers to how much material you need to create one unit of a specific product. This is a standardized measurement used in calculations across individual sheets.
- In-Stock: This is the amount of raw material you have on you right now. As new product orders are scheduled, this value is bound to decrease over the production cycle.
Step 3: Creating a Master Schedule
Welcome to our complete dashboard to help you stay on top of your production schedule! The goal here is to get a bird-eye view of production progress over time.
Timing is everything!
Without production deadlines, the manufacturing process can stall, creating delays and leading to missed production targets. To avoid that, assign a specific Start & End Date for each product or product order (columns F & G). In column H, we automatically calculate the duration for you in days. Based on this data, a colored bar is generated to help you visualize production deadlines for each product.
Cost tracker
This part helps you track the cost of making a product. In Column M, add your manufacturing cost estimate for each product. In the next column (to be filled post-production), specify the actual cost you incurred; this may be higher or lower than what you expected during budgeting. In Column O, we then calculate the difference for you to help you compare planned vs. actual spending.
Progress bars
For each product or product order, you have to manually update progress in real-time. This % is depicted as a blue bar in Column S. These individual Progress Levels are then averaged out and shown right above the main sheet as one combined percentage to indicate overall production progress.
Step 5: Aligning Workstations, Operators, and Products
While the Master Schedule offers a comprehensive list view of product progress, the Workstation Sheet offers a practical tool for you to align your products to your workstations, assign operators, and coordinate shifts.
Our sheet does not allow you to assign more products than there are shifts available at a particular workstation. For example, if you assigned a product to Workstation A for a day shift, you will not be able to assign any other product to the same workstation for a day shift.
Now, the values in column H are automatically pulled in from the Product Sheet (Average Raw Material Required per Unit)…
Column I: Manually add the number of product pieces you’ll be scheduling per workstation per shift. This is essentially the number of products you need to make. In other words, your product demand is based on actual orders or sales forecasts.
Column J: Since In-Stock values are automatically sourced from the Product Sheet (see step 3 above), you don’t need to enter them all over again. Phew!
Now, as you change product quantities to meet new client orders, we automatically calculate the following for you:
- The amount of raw material you need
- The amount you’re left with after each product order
Based on these two values, we calculate and show the Remaining Raw Material in column L. If this value is greater than 1, the next column marks this as a Surplus; if lower than 1, the cell turns red, calling attention to a Shortage of raw materials.
Our Template Helps You Do Your Job Better If You’re A…
- Production or project manager
- Production scheduler
- Procurement team
- Inventory manager
- Production Engineer
- Anyone involved in the manufacturing or service delivery process
Wrap Up
And there you have it! A scalable and highly effective way to schedule production for any production unit.
Use our final database to generate quarterly status reports to measure and reflect on progress throughout the year. Share your reports with relevant team members and stakeholders to make sure everyone is on board.
Whether you are a seasoned factory manager or a senior-level executive, a production schedule allows you to streamline the manufacturing process, syncing production to current inventory levels and standardized material costs. For businesses with more advanced needs, we recommend using dedicated software or a cloud-based service.
Grab our free, professionally designed template to optimize workflow, ensure timely fulfillment of orders & minimize wastage of time & resources!
How to Macro-enable Your File
Before you start using our template, make sure you macro-enable the downloaded file to benefit from the advanced functionalities programmed into our spreadsheet.
Before opening your file in Excel:
Step 1: Right-click on the file icon.
Step 2: Go to ‘Properties’
Step 3: Select the option ‘Unblock’ under ‘Security’
