In today’s complex manufacturing environments, production planners must coordinate machines, materials, people, and delivery deadlines while dealing with constant changes on the shop floor.
To support more realistic and reliable production planning, we have introduced several new capabilities in Qlector LEAP. These updates improve how production plans are created, how delivery deadlines are met, and how inventory is managed.
Below is a quick overview of the latest improvements.
Financial inventory forecasts
Inventory planning is often expressed only in quantities, such as pieces, kilograms, or liters.
However, decision makers also need to understand the financial value of inventory.
With the latest update, LEAP can now convert inventory forecasts into financial values using pricing and contract data from ERP systems.
This enables manufacturers to see how much material they have, and how much capital is tied up in inventory, but also brings benefits such as:
- faster detection of excess inventory
- earlier identification of critical materials
- improved purchasing decisions
- optimization of warehouse and intermediate inventory levels.
Sequential planning for more realistic production plans
Since production processes consist of multiple dependent steps, one operation often cannot start until another one has been completed. Many planning tools still treat operations as independent tasks, which can lead to unrealistic schedules in which production steps are planned without properly considering their dependencies.
The latest LEAP update introduces sequential planning, an upgrade of the existing planning algorithm that adds sequential verification of production phases.
In practice, this means the system automatically checks:
- dependencies between operations within a production order
- the completion status of individual phases
- dependencies between related production orders
- the availability of required input materials.
By verifying all relevant phases and dependencies, LEAP can better estimate whether a production plan is feasible and how long it will realistically take.
This results in more accurate production timelines, faster conflict detection within the production plan, and improved optimization of production scheduling. For production planners, this means plans that better reflect the real constraints of the shop floor.
Backward scheduling for better delivery reliability
Meeting delivery deadlines is one of the biggest challenges in production planning.
Traditional planning often starts from the current date and schedules production forward. However, this approach can sometimes reveal too late that a delivery deadline cannot be met.
With the new backward scheduling capability in LEAP, planning starts from the desired delivery date instead.
The required delivery date is fixed in the system, and LEAP calculates when production must start so the order can be completed on time.
To do this, the system considers multiple real production constraints, including:
- available production capacity
- shift limitations
- work center calendars
- operation durations
- technological processes and bill of materials
- availability of dependent input materials.
Based on this information, LEAP calculates the earliest feasible start date for the production order, making this approach particularly useful in environments where customers provide fixed delivery schedules for the coming weeks.
A more flexible and intuitive planning board
Production planners work with large amounts of operational data every day. To make planning faster and more intuitive, the LEAP planning board now offers a more flexible and customizable layout.
Users can adjust the interface to their needs, resize menus and planning areas, and access additional information or input fields directly within the planning board. This reduces the need to switch between multiple views or tabs during daily planning.
Two additional navigation features further improve usability. The lock function allows planners to freeze a specific view of the planning board when reviewing or comparing parts of the production plan. The target function highlights selected production orders and their related tasks, making dependencies easier to identify.
To Wrap Up
With the latest capabilities in Qlector LEAP, manufacturers can create more realistic production plans, improve delivery reliability, and gain better visibility into the financial impact of inventory.
And better planning not only improves operations, but also directly impacts profitability by reducing hidden inefficiencies across the production process.
On the button below, you can try our simple Hidden Cost Calculator to estimate how much of these hidden inefficiencies could be costing your factory every year.
