8 Facts About Production Planners
Last Updated on June 30, 2025
No matter the size big or small all companies need to plan when they will produce products. Planning helps to maximize human resources, equipment and most possible product.
It takes time to make productive production plans but they are essential. What are some of the advantages?
- Delivering products on time
- Reduced labour costs
- Optimized equipment usage and increased capacity
Sounds like some really good advantages. That’s why there is a job just for planning production runs because they make use of the advantages.
Who are these professionals who actually do the planning?
Production Planners! So read on to learn how production planners make sure that products are made on time with high efficiency.
1. Production Planners plan production schedules
Production planners are specialists who create schedules for manufacturing food products. They develop production schedules that consider customer demands, the amount of materials needed, the labour involved, and other important factors. Additionally, they monitor the execution of production plans and intervene quickly if any issues arise.
Production planners also spend a lot of their time analyzing back orders, current orders and upcoming orders to prioritize, plan, and schedule the production operations. This done through the use of demand planning software.
They collaborate with management to forecast processes related to customer demands within the supply chain. If a company is planning a promotion production planners will work with with sales, marketing, and finance groups to determine what is required.
Finally, they maintain reports for production planning activities and sequences so they can have an idea of how long things take to make.Â
2. Production Planners forecast trends
One of the most challenging tasks for production planners is forecasting inventory needs. This task is not straightforward, as predicting the future is impossible. So, how do they actually make these forecasts? The use information such as:Â
- Historical sales trends and seasonal trends
- Market demands
- Potential future trends
- The budget of the company (Ex. Labour costs, materials)
Using these considerations, they make informed guesses about what the company will need and plan accordingly.
3. Production Planners often come a business or supply management background
There isn’t just one path to becoming a production planner. Many professionals in this role have post-secondary education in fields like business, industrial distribution, supply chain management, or other areas that involve math and analytical thinking.
A degree is not always necessary for certain positions. According to O*Net Online, 58% of production, planning, and expediting clerks have only a high school diploma or an equivalent qualification, or even less. Many of these individuals gained their experience through extensive experience as a dispatchers, production clerk or scheduling clerk. This hands-on experience provides them with valuable insight into the operations of a manufacturing plant, which can be equally important as formal education.
4. Production planning requires a high amount of collaboration
Production planners cannot simply decide what they want. If they did, they would quickly find themselves out of a job! Instead, they must collaborate with various departments to accurately forecast the production needs.
Firstly, they collaborate with the business team by providing feedback on product demand forecasts.
Next, they work with the sales teams to establish forecasts for innovations and corporate promotional volumes, which involves estimating the amount of product needed for promotions. Additionally, they engage with stakeholders to address specific company objectives, such as improving product conversions, reducing write-offs of expired stock, and clearing out excess inventories.
Keep in mind who they collaborate with will vary on the size of the company.
5. Production Planners constantly simplify processes
Companies continuously strive to simplify their business processes. As they gain experience and pay attention to the needs of production workers, they discover ways to streamline these processes. By listening to worker feedback, they can improve their production scheduling. For example, cleaning equipment can be time-consuming, so production planners often group similar products together to save time, such as organizing production runs based on shared allergens.
6. Production Planners prepare production reports
Production reports are documents used by manufacturers to track essential information related to manufacturing. These reports include:
- The product being produced
- The target amount
- The amount of labour used
- The downtown involved
These reports are used to generate manufacturing metrics such as:
- On-Time Delivery to Commit – This metric represents the percentage of time that manufacturing delivers a completed product on the schedule committed to customers.
- Time to Make Changeovers – This measures the duration it takes to transition a manufacturing line or plant from producing one product to another.
These metrics are powerful tools because they help businesses determine where they are doing well and where improvements need to made.
7. Production Planners troubleshoot problems
Unexpected problems can occur in manufacturing leading to unanticipated delays. Even when these issues are resolved, there is often a period when production comes to a halt, resulting in lost time and unproduced goods.
To address these challenges, production planners must be ready to respond effectively when problems arise. One strategy they use to minimize wasted time is to create revised production schedules in response to design changes, labour or material shortages, backlogs, or other disruptions. This process involves collaboration with various departments, including management, marketing, sales, production, and engineering.
8. Production Planners are able to prioritize, manage their time and stay organized
Being a production planner requires a diverse range of skills, but certain ones are essential. These skills are not just beneficial; they’re crucial for success in this role:
- Prioritization – Not all tasks are of equal importance. Prioritizing tasks involves examining the big picture to determine which tasks need your immediate attention. Additionally, effective prioritization ensures that you utilize your resources and efforts to the best advantage. Production planners utilize this skill daily, determining which products should be manufactured first.
- Time management – This skill complements the previous one. Effective time management means you can plan and control how you use your time. It takes experience and skill to estimate how long tasks will take accurately. Production planners rely on this skill to create their production schedules, as it constitutes the majority of their work.
- Organization – Being organized means using your time, energy, and resources efficiently. Production planners rely on strong organizational skills to coordinate production timelines, materials, staffing, and equipment. Without this skill, it’s easy for things to fall through the cracks.
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