Manufacturing enterprise resource planning, with a schedule that fits the floor
Your ERP runs orders, purchasing, inventory and invoicing, and it should keep doing that. The part it rarely does well is the production schedule, which is why so many plants with an ERP still plan in Excel. ProductionPlanning.ai replaces that spreadsheet, not the ERP.
Free for 14 days on your own orders and machines. No card.
Machine shop, This week's schedule, finite capacity per work center
- On time
- Late
- Changeover
On time
0%
Bottleneck
0%
Shortages
0
Why plants with ERP software still plan production in Excel
The planning module of a manufacturing ERP is often the last thing configured and the first thing abandoned. It was set up with fixed lead times, it does not know that the second press is down this week, and changing a sequence takes more clicks than editing a cell. So the planner exports the orders, builds the real plan in a spreadsheet, and types the dates back in.
- The ERP has the orders, but not the sequence on each machine
- The spreadsheet has the sequence, but not the capacity
- Nobody sees the bottleneck until an order is late
- The plan lives in one file on one laptop
Production management next to your ERP, not instead of it
ProductionPlanning.ai schedules your orders with finite capacity on real shifts and setup times. On the Plant plan and above, it takes the orders from your ERP export and sends the schedule back out as a file your ERP can import.
- Import open orders from your ERP export, with column mapping saved once (Plant plan and above)
- Finite capacity schedule per work center and shift
- Late orders and the bottleneck on one screen, with material shortages (Plant plan and above)
- Export start and finish dates back to your ERP (Plant plan and above)
- API for a direct connection (Group plan and above)
Your ERP stays the system of record for money and stock. The schedule becomes the system of record for time.
ERP software for production planning, without another implementation
Replacing an ERP to get a better schedule is a year long project with a consultant. Adding a scheduler next to it is a week of your own time: export orders, write down routings and shifts, run the schedule. Nothing in your ERP changes.
- No migration of accounting, purchasing or inventory
- No consultant needed to start
- Priced per plant, with unlimited users
Plants that run Odoo for stock and accounting can keep it, see the Odoo manufacturing alternative, and the NetSuite manufacturing pricing article does the three year math on the other end of the market. Plants pricing NetSuite read the NetSuite alternative for small manufacturers, plants on SAP read the SAP Business One alternative page, with the license math in SAP Business One pricing. Compare MRP systems with finite capacity scheduling, or see how advanced planning and scheduling works inside ProductionPlanning.ai. Plants weighing a small manufacturing ERP instead usually land on our MRPeasy alternative comparison, and plants already running Katana for stock can read our Katana MRP alternative page. If the quote on your desk is for Fishbowl Advanced, our Fishbowl alternative page sets its per user pricing and required implementation against a flat per plant price, and if it is for JobBOSS2, our JobBOSS alternative page does the same for its Silver, Gold and Platinum packages. Mid sized plants handed a Global Shop Solutions quote can read our Global Shop Solutions alternative page on concurrent user pricing and a three to six month rollout. Plastics, molding and automotive suppliers quoted for the former IQMS can read our IQMS and DelmiaWorks alternative page, which works the per user estimates through for a 15 person plant, with the three year figures in DelmiaWorks pricing. Discrete manufacturers quoted for ECI M1 can read our ECI M1 ERP alternative page, and automotive, food and metalforming suppliers quoted for Rockwell's cloud ERP can read our Plex ERP alternative page, with every published estimate in Plex ERP pricing. Custom machine builders and engineer to order shops quoted for Genius can read our Genius ERP alternative page. Order driven job shops quoted for Infor VISUAL can read our Infor VISUAL ERP alternative page and the three year figures in Infor VISUAL pricing, and plants pricing Epicor's ERP will find the three year arithmetic in Epicor Kinetic pricing and the shortlist of other options on our Epicor Kinetic alternative page. Plants leaving QuickBooks or Sage with an Acumatica Manufacturing Edition quote can read our Acumatica alternative page, and plants quoted for Infor CloudSuite Industrial will find the per user arithmetic in Infor SyteLine pricing and the shortlist on our SyteLine alternatives page. Larger automotive and life sciences plants can check QAD ERP pricing before the sales call, and plants that also run maintenance and field service crews can read IFS pricing for the Full and Task user arithmetic. Machine shops running RealTrac that only need the schedule fixed can read our RealTrac alternative page. Plants on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central that were told to upgrade to Premium for manufacturing can read our Business Central manufacturing alternative, and plants holding a Sage quote can check the Sage X3 pricing math first. SYSPRO customers facing the end of their license on December 31, 2026 can start with our SYSPRO ERP alternative page. Shops holding a Cetec ERP trial will find the support, integration and migration costs on our Cetec ERP alternative page. If the quote is for a dedicated scheduler on top of an ERP, our PlanetTogether alternative, Siemens Opcenter APS alternative and JobPack alternative pages compare those, and plants pricing Autodesk's shop floor tool can read our Prodsmart alternative page.
Keep your ERP. Replace the spreadsheet.
Run the demo, then bring in your own open orders.
Your data stays yours. Export or delete it any time. No card to try the demo.