Abstract: Production planning systems and methods are described that enable production planners to see how capacity decisions affect total production costs and to understand the cost trade offs between excess capacity and inventory and, thereby, enable them to make appropriate manufacturing capacity level and inventory level decisions. In one aspect, a graphical user interface separates the presentation of production planning information from the underlying representation of production planning calculations and interrelationships. The graphical user interface frees a production planner from having to handle the underlying references directly and, thereby, allows the production planner to focus instead on the contexts and concepts of production planning (e.g., making strategic decisions regarding excess capacity levels and inventory levels).

Abstract: Production planning systems and methods are described that enable production planners to see how capacity decisions affect total production costs and to understand the cost trade offs between excess capacity and inventory and, thereby, enable them to make appropriate manufacturing capacity level and inventory level decisions. In one aspect, a graphical user interface separates the presentation of production planning information from the underlying representation of production planning calculations and interrelationships. The graphical user interface frees a production planner from having to handle the underlying references directly and, thereby, allows the production planner to focus instead on the contexts and concepts of production planning (e.g., making strategic decisions regarding excess capacity levels and inventory levels).

Abstract: The invention features production planning systems and methods that enable production planners to see how capacity decisions affect total production costs and understand the cost trade offs between excess capacity and inventory and, thereby, enable them to make appropriate manufacturing capacity level and inventory level decisions. In one aspect, a measure of manufacturing capacity is computed for a given product supplied by a manufacturing line producing one or more products and, based in part upon the computed manufacturing capacity measure, a safety stock level for the given product to cover uncertainty in demand over an exposure period with a target service level is computed.

Abstract: Production planning systems and methods are described that enable production planners to see how capacity decisions affect total production costs and to understand the cost trade offs between excess capacity and inventory and, thereby, enable them to make appropriate manufacturing capacity level and inventory level decisions. In one aspect, a production planner may utilize the production planning systems and methods to plan inventory and capacity levels for one or more products produced on a manufacturing line. In addition to setting capacity and inventory levels, the production planner may use the production planning systems and methods to understand the impact of certain changes (e.g., reducing set-up time or down time, or moving products from one manufacturing line to another) on total production costs.