3.4 Planning department

The Planning department has to play a huge role with the production system of the factory. Mainly they have to deal with the merchandising department of the factory and find the capabilities of producing particular style in the production floor. They find the spaces of the factory production floor and allocate each order in an effective way.

The planning department has to coordinate with the production departments (both cutting and sewing) and with the merchandising department also.

When the factory is asked for an order they check what the ability of producing this order in their production lines is. Then the merchandiser creates a T&A plan for the order negotiating with planning department.
                                                The merchandiser has to discuss with the planning department to check the available capacities in production floor. Then he books those spaces as projections of the production system. When the order is confirmed by the buyer, the T&A plan starts to work out and the projections given production lines are booked permanently.- 

                                                                       

           

            The planning department then calculates and plans the PCD and the PSD in respect of placing the order by considering the number of garments for the order as well as the capacity of the cutting department and sewing department. Then the planning department takes the approval for floor booking schedule dates in PSD and PCD.

Before creating those plans, firstly they take some details from each department of the factory.
 From the work-study department;
       They take the SMV of the garment, types of seams, types of machines required, special machine needed during the sewing process, the efficiency of each production line where they hope to do this production. And also number of machine operators need for each production line.

The planning department is not only involved in creating the production plan of the factory, but also they have to follow up the each production department until they complete their production and the quantity of the whole order is shipped to the buyer.

The Fast React tool

 This is an additional component used with production planning process. Fast React is designed to make the producing planning process easier with aid of the computer data-base of the factory.
It gathers all the things relevant to production system in the factory and helps the

production planner to make his plan easier. And this Fast React tool helps with monitoring of the production process also.

           

The interface of the Fast React Tool

Functions and befinits of Fast React;

• ·         Highly visual and flexible planning – with the ‘drag and drop’ options.
• ·         Capacity Management, Critical Path and materials all in a single, coordinated system
• ·         Manage availability of specialist machinery
• ·         Eliminate time consuming and inefficient manual systems and dramatically reduce excess costs
• ·         Improved efficiency, due to ability to plan and re-plan quickly, also consider different options
• ·         Improved on time production start - due to better pre-production critical path and materials management
• ·         Better work in progress management leading to lower inventory levels and lower ‘nonproductive’ time