End-to-end digitalization between product development and production forms the basis for making production processes more flexible, ramping up production lines faster, and controlling the entire production process more intelligently. This requires better integration of manufacturing process management (MPM) and production planning and control (PPC) in the digital information flows of product development and production. Production planners act as an interface or, perhaps more accurately, as a mediator between both domains. But in terms of IT, they are usually caught between the two stools of the PDM/PLM world, which specifies WHAT is to be produced, and the ERP world, which specifies WHEN. With MPM and PPS, however, it is primarily a matter of HOW.
In business dictionaries, production planning and control are generally understood to be responsible for ensuring the cost-effective design and smooth running of production processes. Production planners determine what products are to be manufactured in what quantities during the planning period, what initial and intermediate products have to be produced or procured for this purpose what lot sizes are needed, when this is to take place, and what personnel and machine capacities are required. They also decide what production orders are to be released when and in what sequence they are to be processed.
