Production Capacity Planning Template in Excel Spreadsheet

Jawad Ahmad

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Jawad Ahmad

Production Capacity Planning Template in Excel Spreadsheet

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Do you have trouble controlling your manufacturing capacity? Your issue will soon be resolved. As we will explain, there is a simple and uncomplicated solution to this issue.

Excel’s production capacity planning tools are incredibly beneficial and simple to use. This option is great for determining how to best respond to production demands.

Production capacity planning template excel spreadsheet is helpful for businesses to choose and implement the best strategy as a response to a surge in product demand.

Also, allow supply chain managers to efficiently implement the supply chain management strategy of a business.

A capacity planning analysis is an assessment of a manufacturing plant’s or other similar facility’s production capacities. Again, it’s easy using this template.

A factory, production line, machine, or other structure is assessed to ascertain its maximum output rate.

One of our most well-liked supply chain and operation templates is the Excel template for capacity planning analysis.

In this article, the basics of production capacity planning, its importance, types, and use will be presented.

Related Article: Resource Capacity Planning Template Excel | Capacity Planner

Production Capacity Planning

What is Capacity Planning?

The goal of capacity planning is to identify the production capacity to meet demand. An efficient tool will maintain a close eye on the requirements and fulfil them promptly. With careful preparation, we can set objectives and carry them out in a constrained amount of time.

As a result, the system needs to be modified to satisfy the d need. According to demand, capacity management may involve increasing shifts and adjusting investments and resources.

Planning is always the best action if the capacity demands your product change over time. You can manage capacity with ease by using a production capacity planning template.

So, in the majority of businesses, capacity planning expertise is crucial. And this is the ability that will ultimately benefit your firm.

Classes of Capacity Planning

Planning for production capacity is directly related to product demand. Therefore, the business’s viability and success directly result from the active product manufacturing design.

You need a proper production strategy if your business produces a product with a seasonal order need.

As a result, capacity planning is essential to ensure that the company can always meet demand.

Main Characteristics of Production Capacity Planning

The ability of a production process to meet the requirement is essentially its capacity. It includes several aspects, such as personnel, resources, management, technology, etc.

Additionally, the SC process incorporates an appropriate planning system.

  • A appropriate system may be used to monitor the Production Capacity. This contributes to improving the precision and effectiveness of the production process.
  • As a result, this procedure guarantees the efficient use of materials and resources, ultimately saving time and money.
  • This spreadsheet-based capacity planning process boosts production and optimizes production.

The ability to influence and manage production is the fourth and most significant benefit of employing this template.

How to use Production Capacity Planning Spreadsheet?

Following examination and completion of the capacity planning process’ prerequisites. The actions listed below are carried out:

  • Prediction of future product demand for all categories.
  • Review and analyze the available capacity
  • Identification of techniques and plans for enhancing capability.
  • Find approaches to completing the requirement.
  • Conduct a qualitative evaluation of the alternatives.
  • Decide on the realistic, viable, and feasible ways to increase capacity.
  • To increase capacity, evaluate the performance of a new proposed system.

Why Is Production Planning Important?

Planning is a crucial step in production, as it is in most processes. When you have a good strategy, you have clear objectives and a solid understanding of what must occur to achieve your objectives. As a result, there are fewer opportunities for bottlenecks, which can cause delays that hinder productivity.

A more simplified manufacturing process that promotes better efficiency is the ultimate aim of production planning. Metrics and key performance indicators are generally improved due to more efficient processes (KPIs). You can quickly determine whether you are hitting production targets by tracking metrics and KPIs using digital tools and dashboards. This can help you determine whether your production plan needs to be adjusted.

Planning for production also improves capacity planning and resource management for manufacturing companies. For example, you may plan out exactly what you need to produce a product rather than having an excess of raw materials (or not enough), which will help you prevent supply chain delays and extra costs. This improves lead times and gives you more control over managing your inventory.

The internal alignment that production planning fosters is another advantage. Everyone in your organization, from machine operators to higher management, can be informed about output by sharing a clear production plan. When everyone follows the same plan, it is easier to prevent internal disagreements and confusion regarding production and establish a more efficient workflow across teams with fewer bottlenecks.

How Does an Excel Production Plan Work?

Spreadsheet programmes like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets are frequently used to create production schedules. These apps allow you to make Gantt charts, which neatly and visually display the various steps in the production process. Project management is aided by this, as is keeping track of everything from customer orders to the bill of materials needed for each product. But, again, these are detailed charts that any team member may understand and use.

The following information is included in a production plan: 

  • Company information
  • Customer information
  • Current order status
  • Production or product numbers
  • Product variations
  • Starting inventory
  • Current Inventory
  • Manufacturing dates
  • Operator or management notes

There won’t be two production plans exactly alike because every organization operates differently. So even if the strategy is based on a common template, some customization will be necessary.

An Excel template can serve as a starting point, enabling your company to construct around your unique objectives and goals without having to start from zero. Remember that a template should be tight enough to prevent you from skipping important phases while being flexible enough to allow for modification. With a distinctive, customizable approach, the Anvil production planning template was developed to assist businesses in streamlining their operations and creating a better production planning experience.

What is the Production Capacity Planning Template?

Capacity planning for production is relevant to the product demand/supply concept.

So, the supply chain managers focus on effective capacity planning in the production process of supply chain management.

The purpose of production capacity planning tools is to assist the sales team to ensure the company’s ability to fulfill customer demand.

However, a company may produce products that have seasonal or regular demand patterns.

Further, the supply chain management strategy helps to calculate the demand forecast of the product.

So, the free production capacity planning template in excel spreadsheet helps to analyze the production capacity of production for the coming season.

Further, the production plan is created to avoid any loopholes and unseen production costs.

Related Article: Supply Chain Management (SCM)

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Importance of Capacity Planning in Production Management

The production capacity of a product focuses on all the limitations and capabilities of the business to fulfill the demand forecast.

So, it involves all the capacity of all the resources such as machinery, management, human skills, technology, suppliers, and logistics.

Further, the capacity of the supply chain system is also important to take into consideration for effective production capacity planning.

Thus, it includes material requirement planning, manufacturing resource planning, demand forecasting, production planning, and product distribution capacity.

The continuous enhancement in the production capacity of a product has several advantages and proves beneficial for business proficiency.

Thus, production capacity planning template excel is useful for monitoring and capacity management.

So, it enhances the production department’s overall equipment effectiveness, run rate, availability, utilization, and efficiency of the production resources.

Further, the key outcome of using a production capacity template excel spreadsheet is to keep the product inventory to a minimum level even fulfilling the customer demands.

So, good capacity planning for production results in a positive response to the fluctuation in product demand in different seasons over the product lifecycle.

Related Article: Business Feasibility Study Analysis

Benefits of Production Capacity Planning Template Excel

Organizations all over the world can gain from a production plan numerous advantages. It guarantees that everyone in the organization is aware of the production process and gives precise benchmarks for evaluating important aspects of the production process.

Manufacturers can prevent uncertainty, waste, and delays using a production plan. This improves consumer satisfaction and ensures that manufacturers fulfil their obligations to suppliers and customers. 

There are a lot of benefits of using the production capacity planning template in excel spreadsheet.

It positively contributes the business profitability. Also, support the supply chain management system.

The following are some of the obvious benefits of implementing a production capacity planning system.

  • Lower Production Costs
  • Fast and On-Time Delivery
  • Improved Throughput of the System
  • Optimized Resource Utilization
  • Less WIP & Lead Times
  • Firefighting
  • Resource administration
  • Supply chain management
  • Internal project coordination
  • Monitoring of milestones and goals
  • Better clarity
  • A single database for monitoring and reducing backlogs
  • Team-wide production visibility
  • Simplified processes

Even though production planning has many advantages, some firms may still be hesitant to use it because making a plan is too daunting. Fortunately, our production planning template removes the stress of creating a plan from scratch, helping your company get on the right track much faster.

Benefits of Production Capacity Planning

Types of Business Production Strategies

There are main types of product production strategies. It may depend on the type of product but mostly on the structure of a company.

So, many multinational companies follow one of the following strategies to produce their iconic products.

Further, these strategies have many names such as manufacturing strategies, promotional strategies, marketing strategies, and production systems.

Push Strategy or Make to Stock

The push production system follows the concept to make all to the full production capacity and stock it in the warehouse.

This marketing system starts from the making of the product while the order is placement comes at the last stage.

So, the company produces a product without having order in hand. Then, push the product in the market for sale.

In this way, the company utilizes its full capacity and provide maximum to fulfill the customer requirement. However, the major disadvantage of this strategy is very high inventory costs.

Push Production Strategy
Credit: Slidemodel.com

As the company capital hangs in the form of inventory unless the product gets sold. However, it results in the shortest lead time of the product.

So, the best example of push promotional strategy is garments and the FMCG sector. Where the products are produced and then put on the display for sale.

While the company keeps on producing new goods even a lot of stock present in the market.

Further, the push strategy works at the stake of the following cons:

  • Production Approximation
  • Large Lots
  • High Inventory Costs
  • More Waste
  • Poor Communication
  • Management by Firefighting

However, the company gets the benefit of lower production costs as per the concept of economies of scale.

Related Article: Best Free Production Schedule Template Excel | Production Scheduling

Pull Strategy or Make to Order

The pull production system follows the concept to make what is needed when it is needed to fulfill the customer requirement.

This marketing system starts from the order placement by the customer. While the production phase comes after order confirmation.

So, the company produces the products for which the order is in hand. Then, deliver the product directly to the customer instead of a warehouse.

In this way, the company saves a lot of effort and achieve the benefit of lowest inventory costs. Also, provide the best customizable product experience to the customer.

Pull Production Strategy
Credit: Slidemodel.com

As the company capital does not hang in the form of inventory. Although, the lead time for product delivery is the largest for this strategy.

So, the best example of a pull promotional strategy is customized products and large machinery industry.

Where the products are produced after the placement of order and confirmation of technical specifications from the customer.

Further, the push strategy has the following advantages over the pull system:

  • Production Precision
  • Actual Consumption
  • Small Lots
  • Low Inventory Cost
  • Less Waste
  • Better Communication
  • Management by Sight

However, the company does not get the benefit of lower production costs as per the concept of economies of scale.

Strategies of Production Capacity Planning

The supply chain management team uses several strategies to efficiently manage the production capacity planning process of a business. However, all the strategies have certain advantages and disadvantages.

These strategies define the response of a business towards the fluctuation in product demand.

So, the success of a business depends greatly on how it responds to the fluctuation in the production demand of a product.

There are three main strategies for production capacity planning for a business.

Leading Strategy

The leading strategy allows the business to anticipate the upcoming surge in the demand for certain products for a specific season.

So, the company plans its production capacity to fulfill the demand forecast. Either by stocking the product or by enhancing product capacity.

Thus, the leading strategy of production capacity planning helps to fulfill the demand surge when competitors are facing a shortage of product.

However, if an unexpected decline in the demand for a product happens.

The company suffers a huge cost of capacity enhancement or inventory due to the aggressive nature of this strategy.

Production Capacity Planning Strategies

Following Strategy

Some businesses do not like to take risks. So, they focus on following the strategy that allows waiting for the actual surge in product demand.

Thus, the company does not overstock the products and keep the production capacity as it is to lower inventory and other costs.

Although, it helps to lower the inventory cost and save major capital investment.

However, the company may face a shortage of products during the perk season.

Thus, it will allow the competitors to enter the market and cut down the business actual sales.

Tracking Strategy

Some companies like to take a calculated risk. So, they follow the tracking strategy in response to the demand surge forecast of a product.

A tracking strategy is a balanced approach to capacity planning and inventory management.

So, it forces the business to increase production capacity but keep the product stocks to a minimum level.

Thus, the company produces the capacity to fulfill the surge in production demand.

However, this approach proves difficult in keeping balance in inventory level and production capacity enhancement.

So, the company stakes at the risk of losing some business and allow the director competitors to take advantage.

Related Article: Free Project Schedule Template | Plans, Gantt Chart and Timeline Templates

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Possible Improvements from Production Capacity Planning

The choice of the right capacity planning strategy helps manufacturing firms in multiple ways. There are few proven benefits of rightly implementing production planning and control strategies.

However, the benefits may vary from industry to industry depending on the current capacity and future planning of the company.

The following are the possible improvements from the capacity planning;

  1. On-Time Delivery
  2. Resource Utilization
  3. Lead Times
  4. Firefighting
  5. Production Cost
  6. Throughput
Improvements from Capacity Planning

On-Time Delivery and Lead Times

The forecast for the surge in product demand attracts the business to start the process of capacity planning. The right implementation of capacity planning will help the company to ensure on-time deliveries to its customers.

New production capacity will have the flexibility to deal with sudden surges and deliver orders on time.

Lead time is the total time company takes to produce and deliver the product to the customer right from the time of order placement.

If a company has less production capacity, then even a small surge in the product demand will increase the lead time.

So, capacity planning helps in multiple ways to improve the lead time of the product. It decreases the production time of the product.

Also, pre-order and arrangement of raw material helps to ensure the earliest start of order production.

Resource Utilization and Firefighting

The capacity planning process includes a step to calculate the existing production capacity of the business. This step considers every resource of the company to calculate the company production capacity.

Also, the increase in production capacity is planned to keep in view the optimized utilization of company resources.

Firefighting is the situation in which the company isn’t ready to deal with the sudden significant surge in product demand.

In such a situation, the company goes into the firefighting situation as the company wouldn’t fulfill the required demand. So, rescheduling of production planning and extra burden on production staff puts the system into firefighting.

This often leads the company to bear very high operations costs, service issues, and ultimately the custom dissatisfaction. Capacity planning helps to forecast a surge in demand.

Thus, the company gets fully prepared for an increase in demand and delivers the customers on-time with shorter lead times.

Production Cost and Throughput

Firefighting situation and sudden plan of increasing production capacity often incur higher costs from every aspect.

Thus, the company that properly works on capacity planning beforehand often gets the advantage of timely expansion and lower production costs.

As the rate/cost of raw material and every support function increases when there is a sudden surge in the demand for the product.

Throughput is a simple concept in production. It is a rate of production. When a company expands its capacity, the company produces more units in a given amount of time. Thus, the throughput of products in the market increases.

Steps to Implement Production Capacity Planning Strategy

There are three main strategies to respond to the forecast of a surge in production demand.

So, many businesses follow all of these strategies for their different products in different seasons as per the business’s financial position.

Thus, business experts recommend following the below guidelines to choose the best strategy.

  1. Analyze the Business Financial Position
  2. Evaluate the Current Production Capacity
  3. Research why to enhance the Production Capacity
  4. Forecast the Product Demand
  5. Find an alternative to Fulfill the Demand
  6. Evaluate each alternative based on Risk Profit Analysis
  7. Implement the Strategy keeping in view Risk Profit Analysis Results

Further, the process flow of implementing selected strategy follows the following steps:

  1. Calculate Require Capacity to Fulfill Surge in Demand
  2. Perform Gap Analysis to evaluate current capacity
  3. Look for the ways to increase production capacity
  4. Find alternatives to meet the requirement
  5. Make feasibility study of the alternatives
  6. Select the way to Fulfill Demand Requirement
  7. Implement the System
  8. Monitor and Track the Performance for Improvements.

Thus, the production capacity planning template in excel spreadsheet design in a pattern to follow the above steps.

Also, many professional production capacity planning software is provided the features to easily implement capacity planning strategy.

So, the business can positively respond to the surge in product demand and keep competitors out of the market.

Finally, it was all about the “Capacity Planning for Production”. Please do share your feedback in the comments section and SUBSCRIBE us to learn more about Supply Chain Management.

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