---
title: Basics of Planning & Control
slug: planning-and-control
docTags: 
createdAt: 2025-06-06T09:37:19.045Z
---

Let’s get you comfortable with **the basics of modern planning and control** so you can understand how everything fits together when it comes to organizing work, time, and resources. 

# Three Main Objectives of Planning

What do we plan? Many planners, even they plan operations every day, do not recognize the reason behind planning itself. 

The idea of planning is based on the following three main objectives:

## Goals

Effective planning always starts with **a set of goals**.

- A factory might aim for 95% on-time delivery next quarter.
- A runner trains for a marathon finish line next month.
- A family plans a holiday trip next week.

With goals, planning is not a list of tasks but a path to an outcome. 

## Constraints

Reality is **full of limits**: time, capacity, capability, accessibility.

- A machine can only run one job at a time.
- An employee has an 8-hour shift instead of 12.
- A stove only has 4 burners.

Modern planning designs around these constraints, not overlook them.

## Improvements

No plan is perfect. Reality changes.
That’s why modern planning always** expects conflicts** *before *they become real problems. — sets new goals, and continuously improves toward them.

- As a chef, you notice dish 1 is taking longer → you slow down dish 2 → so both meals go out on time. 
- As a production planner, your plan shows you will have 95% on-time delivery rate next month → you reschedule some orders → now it is going to be 100%.

Modern planning is about fixing problems ahead of time, and making every plan measurable and comparable.

# Principles of Modern Planning & Control

In a world where change is constant, old habits like micromanaging every detail, planning in silos, or assuming perfect conditions will no longer work. 

That’s why modern Planning & Control is built on **four principles**:

## Exception-Based Problem Solving

**What it means**
Focus only on the unusual. 
If the plan is running smoothly, don’t waste energy finding what isn’t broken.

**Everyday analogy**
Like a smoke detector. It stays quiet when all is well, and only alerts you when something needs action.

**Why it matters**
This mindset drastically reduce planning effort. Planners act only when issues really need attention, keeping focus on the big picture.

## Goal-Oriented Operation

**What it means**
From planning, execution, to problem-solving, every activity should point to a desired and clear outcome. A plan without a goal is just busywork.

**Everyday analogy**
Like training for a marathon. Every excercise is designed for one thing: crossing a certain finishing line in a certain future date and time.

**Why it matters**
Goals provide alignment across teams. 
They change people from "simply working” to working toward the same finish line, whether that’s higher on-time delivery rate, process efficiency, or capacity utilization.

## Real-World Planning

**What it means**
Plans must be built around real-world constraints, not the planning tools. This includes obvious constraints (time, capacity, capability, accessibility), but also specific, customized rules that reflect how work is actually done. 

**Everyday analogy**
Like coaching a team. Players have different skills, and some can cover multiple positions. A good plan uses those strengths, not just the playbook.

**Examples of real-world constraints**

- A fixture or mold may need to be tracked and reused across multiple work steps.
- Employees may have multiple qualifications (e.g., a welder who can also do inspections).
- Machines may handle different processes, but with varying speeds or size limits.
- Tools may require maintenance or have limited durability before replacement.

**Why it matters**
A plan that ignores reality will fail. Then planners or even operators on the shop floor are forced to improvise or invent workarounds themselves. That makes the whole process rigid, fragmented, and dangerously error-prone.

By contrast, real-world planning respects these conditions from the start. 

## Knowledge Sharing

**What it means**
Know-how should not stay locked in individual heads. Capture, share, and apply expertise so the whole team benefits.

**Everyday analogy**
Like an experienced operator who knows *“Machine A always runs this part faster than Machine B.”* 

If that knowledge stays only with them, everyone else plans blindly. But if it’s shared into the system, it can be applied automatically, so the whole team benefits from what used to be implicit, undocumented knowledge.

**Why it matters**
This mindset prevents single points of failure. It also ensures that every one can make the planning easier and smarter — bottlenecks avoided, machine quirks understood, and lessons embedded for future planning.

***

# Basic Workflow in Modern Planning & Control 

Modern Planning & Control is more than a scheduling tool. It’s a **process loop** that connects orders, resources, execution, and feedback into one continuous flow.

## From Orders to Execution

**1. Orders enter planning & control**

Planning always starts from capacity demand, which includes:

- Orders imported from other systems like ERP, BI, or created in planeus.
- They contain key information such as articles, quantity, delivery dates, as well as additional data like BOM, production routing, and required materials.

**2. Plan is generated**

The system creates a plan that respects **real-world constraints **and assigns the right job to the right resource, in the right order, with no conlicts detected.

- **Deadlines:** Ensuring tasks finish before due dates.
- **Capacity:** How much work people/machines can actually handle.
- **Capabilities:** Which resources can perform which tasks.
- **Sequence:** Accounting for routing, setup times, changeovers, and dependencies.

**3. Task is executed **

Based on the plan, operators and team follow their assigned tasks and execute the task on the shop floor within planned time.

- **Status: **When tasks are started, paused, or completed by the operator.
- **Progress data**: duration, yield, scrap, interruptions

:::hint{type="info"}
**Why this matters: **In modern planning & control, the plan does not stay static — it always expect changes and is driven by the progress in operations. 
:::

## From Execution to Order

**4.  Feedback Is Collected **

As execution happens, the system continuously collects updates:

- **Order progress** (on track / delayed).
- **Progress data**: duration, yield, scrap, interruptions
- **Interruptions **(machine downtime, material shortages, quality issues).

These data will flow back, showing what’s on track, delayed, or blocked. 

- During the operation, planners can still extend/shorten times, rearrange sequences, and reallocate task for the workers.

:::hint{type="info"}
**Why this matters: **This gives planners instant visibility into whether the plan is still on track.
:::

**5.  Conflict detection**

When conflicts or changes emerge, the plan can be updated with planner input, such as

- Reschedule jobs when resources are unavailable.
- Reallocate workload to alternative machines, employees or other resources.
- Recalculate dates or edit production orders.

:::hint{type="info"}
**Why this matters: **Plans stay valid even when reality shifts. 
Modern planning assures you don’t wait until problems hit you due to early adjustments.
:::

**6.  Order completion**

When a work order is finished, the planning & control system **summarizes the actual results**:

- Output quantities.
- Material consumption.
- Actual times.

**7.  Backflushing to ERP**

The summarized production results are **sent back (backflushed) into ERP** automatically.

- ERP is updated with:
  - Completed orders.
  - Inventory usage and balances.
  - Labor and machine hours.
  - other peporting data.

:::hint{type="info"}
**Why this matters:**
By automatically backflushing results, both can focus on their own priorities while working seamlessly together:

ERP on the *business outcomes*:

- Cost calculation and financial improvement.
- Customer orders and commitments.
- Supplier and procurement management.

Planning & Control on the *operation outcomes:*

- Delivery dates and schedule reliability.
- Accurate, real-time execution data.
- Efficiency in workflows and processes.
- Capacity usage and resource constraints.
:::

:::hint{type="success"}
**Up Next: *What’s Inside planeus?***

Now that you’ve seen how modern planning works conceptually — it’s time to explore what powers it.

**In the next chapter, **you’ll get a guided look at the standard modules, advanced features, and core functions that make planeus such a powerful planning and control system.

👉 [Let’s open it up and see what’s inside.](docId\:IKPOZ-brL2l6j_hZr8p6e) 
:::

**