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Production Planner
Production planning is the planning of production and manufacturing modules in a company or industry. It utilizes the resource allocation of activities of employees, materials and production capacity, in order to serve different customers.[1]
Different types of production methods, such as single item manufacturing, batch production, mass production, continuous production etc. have their own type of production planning. Production planning can be combined with production control into production planning and control, or it can be combined with enterprise resource planning.
Production planning is the future of production. It can help in efficient manufacturing or setting up of a production site by facilitating required needs.[2] A production plan is made periodically for a specific time period, called the planning horizon. It can comprise the following activities:
Determination of the required product mix and factory load to satisfy customers needs.[3]
Matching the required level of production to the existing resources.[4]
Scheduling and choosing the actual work to be started in the manufacturing facility"[1]
Setting up and delivering production orders to production facilities.[5]
In order to develop production plans, the production planner or production planning department needs to work closely together with the marketing department and sales department. They can provide sales forecasts, or a listing of customer orders."[6] The "work is usually selected from a variety of product types which may require different resources and serve different customers. Therefore, the selection must optimize customer-independent performance measures such as cycle time and customer-dependent performance measures such as on-time delivery."[1]
A critical factor in production planning is "the accurate estimation of the productive capacity of available resources, yet this is one of the most difficult tasks to perform well".[7] Production planning should always take "into account material availability, resource availability and knowledge of future demand".[5]
Thetford is a market town and civil parish in the Breckland district of Norfolk, England. It is on the A11 road between Norwich and London, just east of Thetford Forest. The civil parish, covering an area of 29.55 km2 (11.41 sq mi), has a population of 24,340.[1]
There has been a settlement at Thetford since the Iron Age, and parts of the town predate the Norman Conquest; Thetford Castle was established shortly thereafter. Roger Bigod founded the Cluniac Priory of St Mary in 1104, which became the largest and most important religious institution in Thetford. The town was badly hit by the dissolution of the monasteries, including the castle's destruction, but was rebuilt in 1574 when Elizabeth I established a town charter. After World War II, Thetford became an "overspill town", taking people from London, as a result of which its population increased substantially.[2] Thetford was the headquarters of Tulip International, large-scale manufacturers of bacon, beef and pork until its closure in 2010.
Thetford railway station is served by the Breckland line and is one of the best surviving pieces of 19th century railway architecture in East Anglia.
