Production Planning & MRP Software Development
Finite-capacity scheduling, BOM-driven material planning, and demand-aware re-planning that runs on your shop floor reality — not infinite-capacity fiction.
Most ERPs ship with an MRP module that assumes infinite capacity, deterministic lead times, and operators who follow the schedule. Real plants don't work that way. Tooling breaks, suppliers slip, hot orders cut the line, and the schedule the planner published Monday is fiction by Wednesday.
Volvsoft builds custom production planning and MRP software for plants where the schedule has to react in hours, not weeks. We model real machine capacity, real changeover constraints, and real material availability — and re-plan in seconds when the shop floor reality changes.
What you get
Finite-capacity scheduling
Real bottleneck modeling. Sequence-dependent setup times. Tooling, fixture, and operator constraints — not just machine availability.
Demand-driven MRP
DDMRP buffer-zone planning where it fits. Time-phased MRP everywhere else. Mixed-mode supported per item.
What-if simulation
Test the impact of a hot order, a machine outage, or a supplier slip in seconds — without disturbing the live plan.
BOM & routing engine
Engineering, manufacturing, and as-built BOMs. Effective-dated routings. Phantom assemblies. Co/by-products.
ERP & MES integration
Reads forecasts, sales orders, inventory from ERP. Pushes work orders to MES. Closes the loop on actuals.
Planner-friendly UI
Visual Gantt boards, drag-to-reschedule, exception filters. Built for the planner who has to defend the schedule, not a data scientist.
When stock MRP fails
Every ERP includes an MRP module — most are textbook implementations that work fine for textbook environments. They fall apart when:
- Setup time depends on the previous part run (sequencing matters)
- A bottleneck machine has to be scheduled at the operation level, not the work-center level
- Material substitutions are common and the planner needs to see the effect on cost and lead time
- Lead times vary widely by supplier and order quantity (no single number tells the truth)
- The MRP run takes hours, blocking the planning team from re-planning intra-day
APS / finite scheduling done right
Off-the-shelf APS (Preactor, Asprova, Aspen, OptiPlant) is powerful but expensive and often a black box. Custom APS wins when the constraints that drive your sequencing are unique — and they almost always are.
- Sequence-dependent changeovers (color, alloy, profile, tooling)
- Co-production and by-production from a single operation
- Multi-stage routings with finite WIP between stages
- Operator skill matrix as a hard constraint
- Energy / utility availability windows (peak-shaving plants)
Architecture
Modern planning systems split the planning brain from the data plane so re-planning is fast.
- Event-sourced architecture: every plan version is replayable
- In-memory solver for sub-second re-planning on 10K+ orders
- Constraint-based optimization (CP-SAT or proprietary heuristics)
- Multi-objective scoring — throughput, on-time, WIP, energy
- Open API so MES, ERP, and dashboards can pull live plan data
Frequently asked questions
Do we replace our ERP's MRP?
Often we layer on top — ERP stays the financial source, the planning engine sits beside it as the operational brain. We sync them so demand and orders flow in, and finalized work orders flow back out.
How long until we see schedule adherence improve?
Pilot bottleneck scheduling typically delivers measurable adherence and OTD lift within 6-10 weeks. Plant-wide rollout 4-8 months depending on routing complexity.
Can it handle engineer-to-order?
Yes. ETO and project-based manufacturing are explicit modes — the planner sees the full project network, dependencies, and resource conflicts in the same plan as repetitive work.
What about make-to-stock vs make-to-order mixes?
Mixed-mode is the default. Items can be MTS, MTO, ATO, or ETO and the planning policy is per-item. We've built mixed-mode for plants where 70% of revenue is MTS and 30% is one-off ETO with no overlap in resources.
Related solutions
Other Volvsoft platforms US manufacturers commonly pair with this one.
Industries we serve
Manufacturing verticals where Volvsoft has shipped production systems for US clients.
Ready to talk to a manufacturing software team?
Book a free 30-minute call. We'll scope your platform.
- Email: sales@volvsoft.com
- Phone: +1 415-729-8811
