Do you need resource planning in production? These factors will help with your decision!
Many processes in companies today are so complex that management is correspondingly difficult. Companies easily lose track of free capacities, the utilization of certain machines, or the availability of materials, especially if the resource planning is not right.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) refers to the entrepreneurial task of planning, controlling, and managing resources such as capital, personnel, operating resources, materials, and information, and communication technology in a timely manner and in line with the company's purpose.
What is resource planning?
Some capacities and resources in companies are scarce, or particularly important. Therefore, they must be optimally occupied and used. If possible, they should be in use without interruption and not stand around unused. These are often so-called bottleneck resources, which are decisive for how long orders lie around in production, how long throughput times are and what working capital is tied up.
This can become critical, above all, when processes in the company falter and do not progress. When waiting times and thus throughput times increase and delivery dates cannot be met because some resources are too scarce, or their use was planned incorrectly. Resource planning must ensure that as many processes as possible can access the resource, and thus run smoothly. If this is not possible, other, comparable resources must be procured.
What belongs to the resources of a company?
In order to carry out resource planning properly, one thing is needed first: an overview of all resources. With a focus on production, a resource is any factor that contributes to fulfilling a production order. This includes, for example, work centers, machines, and materials. More important for good resource planning and the associated calculation of resources, however, are employees and working hours. Incidentally, in today's digital world, software and data can also be counted among a company's resources.
Capital
Capital is defined as a central stock concept and is generally equated with money. In concrete terms, however, money is more than just a means of payment. In everyday language, capital means monetary or material assets that are usually intended for the circulation of goods. In the economic sense, capital can be understood as all means of production involved in the production, i.e., the production equipment that can be used for the production of goods and services.
This is also called capital stock, and includes assets such as tools, machinery, and equipment, etc., that is, assets that have already been produced (not by the company itself). The topic of finance, in particular, takes on an important role in the ERP context, as money is often the basis for all other resources.
Staff
Whether human resources management, personnel management, or human capital management. As different as these terms are used, as diverse as their characteristics and the associated objectives are, they all have one thing in common: they focus on people and the work performance they produce. The "human factor of production" is increasingly becoming the focus of corporate management, and is often regarded as the most important resource. Companies are increasingly realizing that professional human resource management, especially in globally active companies, is one of the most important strategic competitive factors, with a commonly underestimated impact on value creation.
Tools / Machines
A fundamental prerequisite for economic production is its tools and machines. In manufacturing, in particular, they are often considered the most cost-intensive resource alongside personnel costs, and must therefore be planned most efficiently. It is important to avoid downtimes and keep capacity utilization high. Maintenance is also a part of resource planning and should be taken into account accordingly.
Material
A core function of ERP in manufacturing companies is material requirements planning, which must ensure that all materials required for the manufacture of products and components are available at the right place, at the right time, and in the right quantity. Overall, this should eliminate the previous conflicting goals and achieve as performance characteristics: