In this guide 6 sections
The plan drifts because three things change faster than the sheet that holds it. They are the customer’s revised schedule, the state of each machine and the stock sitting in the dispatch bay. Each change reaches the floor late, by word of mouth. Keep one live schedule that all three feed.
A revised schedule arrives and nobody owns it
The customer sends a revised release by email on Thursday. The stores clerk sees it. The planner sees it on Friday. The press shop supervisor hears about it on Monday from a driver.
Meanwhile the old figures sit in the plan, in the kanban cards and in the shift board. Three versions of the same demand are now in use. Nobody lied. Nobody was careless.
Count the days between the customer’s file landing and the shift board changing. That gap is the first measure of drift, and a pencil can measure it. Auto OEMs also revise firm and forecast quantities differently. A forecast change should warn you. A firm change must move the die schedule, the raw material call-off and the truck booking, usually in that order.
- Date and time the revised release was received
- Who read it first and who was told
- Which part numbers changed quantity or date
- Whether the old schedule was marked as replaced
A breakdown moves the plan, but only in someone’s head
A 400 tonne press stops for a die crack. The maintenance lead knows it will be down for two shifts. The supervisor moves the job to a smaller press and runs a slower cycle.
The plan still shows the original press, the original cycle time and the original finish. Machine hours in the sheet are now fiction. Every job queued behind it inherits the error, and the planner finds out only when a customer calls to ask where the truck is.
Short stops count too. A weld cell that loses an hour a day for a week quietly eats a shift. Changeovers hide in the same way. A die change planned for forty minutes that takes ninety never appears in the plan, yet the second shift starts late because of it.
Finished stock in the dispatch bay is counted twice or not at all
Parts wait in the dispatch bay for a truck, for a quality release, or for a label. The planner treats them as shipped. The stores clerk treats them as still available.
So the plan skips a batch it believes is done. The customer’s line stops two days later. Or the plan builds a batch that was already sitting under a tarpaulin, wrapped and waiting for a label.
Held lots make it worse. A lot on quality hold is neither made nor shipped, and a spreadsheet has no honest place to put it.
- Ready and released for dispatch
- Waiting for the customer’s label or ASN
- On quality hold or sent for rework
- Already loaded or invoiced
One live schedule beats a better spreadsheet
The cure is not a tighter weekly meeting. It is one schedule where the customer release, the machine status and the bay stock all change the same numbers.
When a release is revised, the system shows which jobs move. When a press is marked down, it shows which orders miss their date. The supervisor reads the same screen as the planner. No phone calls.
That is what a shop-floor system built around your parts, dies and customers does. It is also why a generic template falls short: your cycle times and changeover rules are the plan.
Start by tracing one part number for a week
Pick a part that ships every day to one customer, ideally one with a tight milk run in Manesar or Faridabad. Write down every number that describes it: customer demand, plan quantity, work in process, bay stock, dispatched. Do it at the start of each shift.
By Friday you will see where the figures part ways. It is usually the same two handoffs. Fix those first, then ask the stores clerk and the maintenance lead to update their own columns, and the rest of the plan follows.
Plan drift tracer sheet
Single-page tracer for following one part number across a week. Rows are shifts. Columns are customer release quantity, plan quantity, work in process, bay stock, quality hold, dispatched and the person who last changed each figure. A final column marks where two numbers disagree.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
How often should the production plan be updated?
Whenever the demand, a machine or the stock changes, not on a fixed day. Weekly reviews are fine for checking, but the working schedule must move the moment a release is revised.
Why does the plan look right in Excel but wrong on the floor?
Because the sheet is edited by one person while the floor reacts to many events. A breakdown or held lot never reaches the cells unless somebody types it in.
Do we need an ERP to fix this?
Not always at the start. A shared live schedule with release, machine and bay stock fields can cover it. Once several plants or customers are involved, a proper system pays its way.
Who should own the schedule?
One planner owns it, but the supervisor, stores and maintenance should all be able to update their own part. Ownership of the sheet is not ownership of every number.