Production Planning

Production planning (PP) applications software automates activities related to the collaborative forecast and continuous optimization of manufacturing processes. PP applications span supply planning, demand planning, and production planning within organizations. These applications identify demand signals, aggregate historical data that informs short- and long-term demand expectations, and provide supplier capabilities across multiple manufacturing sites. Production planning application software is key to any supply chain management initiative because supply and demand planning dictates the rest of the supply chain activities. The following are representative vendors and products in this market:

• Aspen Supply Planner and Aspen Plant Scheduler
• Manugistics Manufacturing Planning and Scheduling (P&S)
• Oracle Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS)
• SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization (APO)