Production planning optimization: the simulation engine to drive your industrial performance
What if your industrial decisions were made based on the best possible scenario?
Planora is an advanced simulation and optimization tool dedicated to industrial scheduling and strategic decision-making. It combines:
- Intelligent optimization engine
- Dynamic flow simulation
- Customizable multi-criteria fitness function
- Decision dashboards in Power BI
The blind spot of industrial management
What drives performance is not what you look at. The workshop reveals performance… the planning determines it.
The planning decides every day: customer deadlines, production costs, machine utilization rates, changeovers. These decisions are made on spreadsheets, with ERP and a lot of intuition. No dedicated tool allows you to objectively evaluate the overall impact of a schedule.
With just 20 manufacturing orders on a single machine, there are 1018 possible sequences. Intuition is no longer enough.
| No. of MOs | Possible sequences | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | 120 | Manageable |
| 10 | 3.6 million | Unmanageable |
| 15 | > 1 trillion | Out of reach |
| 20 | 1018 | Total abstraction |
A powerful production planning optimization engine
Planora integrates an evolutionary algorithm capable of exploring thousands of scheduling scenarios in just a few minutes. Not by testing everything, but by intelligently converging toward the optimum.
What it automatically optimizes
- Manufacturing order start dates
- Production priorities
- Machine and operator utilization
- Changeover times (setup / changeover)
- Capacity constraints
- Tardiness penalties
- Customer service rates
The configurable fitness function
A single score that aggregates all performance criteria. The lower the fitness, the better the planning. Weighting coefficients are adjustable according to your strategic priorities:
- Minimize makespan
- Reduce delays
- Maximize service rate
- Improve OEE
- Smooth resource load
The engine automatically calculates and selects the best overall scenario.
Realistic industrial simulation
Our approach is based on flow simulation to faithfully reproduce your production processes.
Each optimized scenario is validated by a complete dynamic simulation of your workshop. No simplified model: your reality is faithfully reproduced.
Machines & Routings
Multiple capacities, detailed operation routings, sequence-dependent setup times.
Breakdowns & Maintenance
MTBF / MTTR, random breakdowns, degraded mode, planned preventive maintenance.
Operators & Skills
Human constraints, versatility, skills matrix, shift schedules.
Complex Flows
Job shop, flow shop, mixed flows, configurable priority rules.
PLANORA is the reference solution for production planning optimization through simulation and artificial intelligence.
The 3-step approach
Describe your workshop
Fill in your data in simple Excel files: machines, products, routings, schedules, operators.
Automatic optimization
The algorithm explores thousands of combinations and converges toward the best overall planning.
Simulation & Decision
The optimal planning is replayed in simulation. Gantt charts, KPIs, exports and Power BI dashboards.
Decision dashboards
Planora automatically generates interactive Power BI dashboards to manage your production and compare your scenarios.
Interactive dashboard example
Navigate through this demo dashboard to discover the indicators generated by Planora:
Each Power BI report can be downloaded in PDF format for offline distribution.
ERP integration
Planora connects to your existing information system. Import your manufacturing orders, routings and resources directly from your ERP.
- ERP data import (SAP, Oracle, Sage, etc.) via Excel files
- Automatic export of optimized scenarios
- Simple and documented input files
- No modification of your IS required
Why Planora for production planning optimization?
Industrial planning needs four pillars to move from intuition to strategic decision support:
- Advanced simulation — Reproduce the real behavior of the workshop with its breakdowns, uncertainties and human constraints
- Algorithmic optimization — Go beyond common-sense rules by intelligently exploring the solution space
- Decision-oriented KPI vision — Transform raw data into actionable indicators
- Rapid scenario testing — Compare the impact of an organizational change in just a few clicks
Planora transforms your planning into a strategic decision-support tool.
PLANORA vs traditional scheduling software
Traditional scheduling software plans in a perfect world: no breakdowns, no uncertainties, no variability. PLANORA integrates into its optimization machine breakdowns (MTBF/MTTR), preventive maintenance, operator skills and changeovers.
Result: a schedule that holds up in reality, not just on screen. Each scenario is evaluated by a global fitness function that aggregates all performance criteria into a single score. Traditional software shows you separate KPIs. PLANORA tells you: here is the best possible decision, quantified and defensible.
From workshop to complete site: the multi-workshop view
PLANORA is not limited to a single workshop. It models all your production flows — from the first to the last workshop — with configurable inter-workshop buffers.
Today, each workshop manager optimizes their own perimeter. One maximizes OEE. Another reduces changeovers. The last one chases customer deadlines. Each is locally performing. But the factory, globally, underperforms.
The factory optimum sometimes requires degrading a local KPI to improve the overall result. Accepting an OEE of 85% in one workshop to reduce inter-workshop stock by 40% and improve the service rate from 75% to 95%. PLANORA is the tool that makes this conversation possible: numbers speak, intuition falls silent.
Kanban vs DDMRP: which strategy for your inter-workshop stocks?
Many manufacturers use Kanbans between workshops, but only for high-rotation references. Why? Because covering all references with Kanban would require too much storage space.
DDMRP (Demand Driven MRP) solves this problem with dynamic stock zones (red / yellow / green) that adapt to the actual consumption of each product:
- High-rotation products: automatically sized buffer, responsive to demand peaks
- Low-rotation products: minimal buffer of a few pieces, no dormant stock
- Overall stock lower than Kanban, with 100% reference coverage
- Automatic update: zones recalculate based on actual consumption
Unlike traditional DDMRP software that calculates buffers with a static formula, PLANORA simulates your buffers in the real context of your factory — with breakdowns, maintenance, changeovers and operator skills. Your buffers are sized for your reality, not for a theoretical formula.
Production planning optimization: industrial use cases
PLANORA is used in pharmaceutical packaging, mechanical engineering and manufacturing. Wherever scheduling directly impacts customer service rate, production cost and equipment utilization.
Whether you have 5 machines or 50, 10 manufacturing orders or 500, PLANORA adapts to the size of your problem and delivers an optimized, defensible and directly actionable production schedule.
Try Planora for free
Test the software on your own production data for 30 days.
No commitment. No credit card required.
