Morsa publishes this guide. Morsa is software with an AI agent that works in your ERP, email and Teams; it checks each work order’s parts before release and chases short ones, with a planner approving.
Quick answer
The step never to skip: the capacity check. MRP plans material, not machine hours: Business Central’s documentation says its planning entries “assume infinite capacity” [1].
The rule that holds the plan together: freeze next week. Changes inside it need the production manager’s yes.
How to promise a date: the first week after the frozen week where material and capacity are both clear, plus assembly and test time.
The 8 steps, with what goes in and what comes out
Step | Input | Output |
|---|---|---|
1. Review demand | Open customer orders, forecast, finished-goods stock | Demand by item by week, 8 to 12 weeks out |
2. Sales and operations planning (S&OP) | Sales outlook, capacity, inventory targets, budget | Volume by product family by month, agreed by sales, operations and finance |
3. Master production schedule (MPS) | Weekly demand, stock, the S&OP volume | Which end items, how many, in which week |
4. Material requirements planning (MRP) | MPS, bills of materials, stock, open purchase orders (POs), lead times | Planned POs and work orders, plus MRP’s suggested actions, such as “move this PO earlier” |
5. Capacity check | Planned work orders, routings, hours per work center | Load by work center by week, every overload resolved |
6. Scheduling | Work orders, machine hours, material arrival dates | The sequence for each machine, shift by shift |
7. Release and dispatch | The schedule, a parts check, tooling and people | Released work orders with kits pulled |
8. Feedback | Completions, scrap, downtime, receipts | ERP status up to date, each miss with its reason |
MRP inside NetSuite, Business Central and other ERPs: MRP in your ERP.
An overload in step 5 has five fixes: overtime, moving a job to a week with room, an alternate machine, outsourcing, or a new promise date. Pick the cheapest and say who agreed. For finite scheduling in step 6, see advanced planning and scheduling.
Who does each step
Step | Under 100 people | 100 to 300 people |
|---|---|---|
Demand and S&OP | Owner or GM, with the production manager | GM chairs; sales, planning and finance bring numbers |
MPS and MRP | Production manager | One planner at about 120; a master scheduler by 300 |
Buying and expediting | Production manager or one buyer | One or two buyers at 120; two or three, split by commodity, by 300 |
Capacity and scheduling | Production manager | The planner for the week; the production manager or area leads for the day |
Release, dispatch, feedback | Supervisor and stores | Supervisors and stores, plus a material handler per area by 300 |
Our estimates. Plans break at handoffs, so write each one down.
The rhythm: monthly, weekly, daily
Ours, not a standard:
When | What | Who |
|---|---|---|
Monthly | S&OP review, 60 to 90 minutes, by product family | GM, sales, planner, finance |
Monday morning | Review demand, update the MPS, run MRP (2 to 3 hours) | Planner |
Monday afternoon | Capacity check; buyers place POs and act on MRP’s suggested actions | Planner, buyers, production manager |
Thursday | Freeze next week; send the kit list to stores | Planner, stores |
Every morning | 15-minute plan against actual (manufacturing KPI dashboard) | Production manager, supervisors, planner |
Promising a date on a new order
In make to order, promise the first week that passes three checks, in this order:
Outside the frozen week, unless it goes through the exception below.
Material: every part on hand, on a supplier-confirmed PO that lands in time, or orderable within its lead time.
Capacity: the bottleneck work center has the hours, after the moves you are willing to make.
Add assembly, test and shipping days and promise that date, not the one asked for. This is the make-to-order core; in make to stock the forecast drives the MPS instead, and in engineer to order engineering release comes before MRP.
The frozen-week exception. For a rush order that must start inside the frozen week, the planner shows what it bumps: which job, whose order, how many hours, what overtime costs. The production manager decides that day; on a yes, the bumped customer gets a new date the same day. Say no when the parts are not on hand.
A worked week: one rush order, from promise to dispatch
A 120-person plant makes hydraulic valves. On Monday of week 1 a customer asks for 200 VA-40s, ideally by Friday of week 2. Each needs a machined body, two seal kits and a solenoid. Each of the two mills has 40 hours a week.
When | Step | What happened |
|---|---|---|
Week 1, Monday | 1 and 3: demand, MPS | 40 in stock: net need 160. Week 1 is frozen, so bodies go in week 2 |
Week 1, Monday | 4: MRP | Seal kits: 400 on hand, 320 needed. Solenoids: 50 on hand plus 100 on a PO due in week 2: 10 short. A new PO at the 15-working-day lead time lands Monday of week 4, too late |
Week 1, Monday | 5: capacity | 160 bodies at 9 minutes is 24 hours. Week 2 already holds 62 of the mills’ 80 hours: 86 hours, 108%. The planner moves a 10-hour stock job to week 3: 76 hours, 95% |
Week 1, Tuesday | 4: expedite | The buyer asks the supplier to add 10 to the open PO; it confirms 110 for Thursday of week 2 |
Week 1, Tuesday | Promise | Parts are ready Thursday of week 2, so assembly starts Monday of week 3; two days of assembly and a day for test: promise Friday of week 3. Friday of week 2 would need machining in frozen week 1 and solenoids before Thursday, so it is not offered |
Week 1, Thursday | 6: schedule | Bodies on mills 1 and 2, Tuesday and Wednesday of week 2, 12 hours each; assembly Monday and Tuesday of week 3 |
Week 3, Monday | 7: release | 160 bodies, 320 seal kits and 160 solenoids on hand. Assembly released |
Week 3, Tuesday | 8: feedback | 3 of 160 fail the leak test, reworked Wednesday; that rate becomes the next order’s scrap allowance |
Week 3, Friday | Shipped | 200 ship on the promised date |
Starting from a spreadsheet and your ERP
Set up one sheet with these columns: work order, item, quantity, customer order, promise date, work center, hours, planned week, short part, PO number, supplier-confirmed date, status. Add a load tab with one line per work center per week: available hours, planned hours, load %.
The first weekly review takes about an hour (our estimate):
Last week’s misses, each with its reason.
Load per work center for two weeks, overloads resolved.
Open PO lines due in two weeks with no confirmed date, each with a chaser.
Freeze next week.
When ERP lead times and routings are wrong, fix the ones that hurt first: set lead times for the 20 parts on the most orders from their last three receipts, time five jobs on each bottleneck work center and correct its routing hours, then re-run MRP.
6 metrics for a production planner
Metric | Formula | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
Schedule attainment | Operations finished by their scheduled date ÷ operations scheduled | The floor followed the schedule |
On-time delivery | Order lines shipped in full by the promise date ÷ lines due | Customers got what you promised |
Capacity load | Planned hours ÷ available hours, per work center per week | Over 100% means a late order |
Shortages at release | Work orders that could not start for a missing part ÷ work orders due to start | What MRP and buying missed |
Unconfirmed PO lines | Open PO lines with no supplier-confirmed date ÷ open PO lines | How much of the plan is a guess |
Frozen-week changes | MPS lines changed inside the frozen week ÷ MPS lines that week | Whether the floor can trust the plan |
Set targets against your own last 13 weeks; watch the trend more than the level.
Why production plans fail
Beyond a skipped capacity check and unconfirmed supplier dates:
No frozen window. The plan changes daily, so the floor runs what is easiest.
Feedback entered late. The ERP shows work that is done or scrapped, and the next MRP run is wrong.
Planning to a speed the line has never reached. If the line has never beaten 80 parts an hour, a plan at 100 is late before the week starts.
The plan lives in one person’s spreadsheet. It works until that person is out; production planning software compares ERP modules, scheduling tools and spreadsheets, and when to move off one.
Catching the short part before release
Each morning, Morsa checks every work order due to start against stock and supplier dates in your ERP, whether JobBOSS2, Epicor, Global Shop or NetSuite.
When a part will be short, it shows the orders it hits and asks the supplier for a date from the buyer’s mailbox. The buyer approves each kind of message once; after that it runs under that rule.
It proposes a new sequence; once the planner approves, it updates the ERP and tells the supervisor in Teams.
JRG Automotive, a Morsa customer, caught 5 of 8 production-stopping shortages early enough to act, about $2 million saved. Book a 30-minute walkthrough.
What to do this week
Write the 8 steps on one page with a name beside each.
Freeze next week from Thursday.
Run a capacity check on next week for your two busiest work centers.
Count open PO lines due in two weeks with no confirmed date; chase those behind customer orders first.
The production schedule template has these columns and the load tab built, with the worked week filled in.
Sources
Microsoft Learn, Run full planning, MPS, or MRP (Business Central): “Business Central generates worksheet entries that assume infinite capacity”: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/production-how-to-run-mps-and-mrp (read 8 November 2026)
Encyclopedia of Management, Production planning and scheduling (via Encyclopedia.com): https://www.encyclopedia.com/management/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/production-planning-and-scheduling (read 8 November 2026)
