Free tool
Production schedule template
A production schedule template lists each operation with its work center, hours and planned week, adds the hours up against what each work center can run, and flags every overloaded week. This one plans in weekly buckets: it shows whether each week’s work fits, not a day-by-day order of jobs on each machine. It holds up to 200 operations over 4 to 12 weeks, with a master production schedule and a material check, and opens on a 120-person valve plant. Download it as a five-sheet Excel workbook with live formulas, or as a PDF.
Updated November 8, 2026
Morsa makes this free tool. Morsa is software with an AI agent that works in your ERP, email and Teams.
How to use the production schedule template
Add your work centers: machines or people, hours a day, days a week and efficiency. Efficiency is the share of scheduled hours that turns into standard hours of work after breaks, changeovers and small stops; take it from your own last few weeks (standard hours earned / hours worked). The tool works out the hours each can run in a week.
Add the operations, one row per work order per work center: quantity, due week, setup hours, run minutes each and the week you plan it. Paste rows copied from your ERP export or spreadsheet.
Read the load. Each work center’s week shows planned hours as a percent of available hours; over 100% is flagged with the biggest jobs and the first later week with room.
Check the master schedule and materials for the item and the build that matter this week.
Download the workbook, or start blank and build your own plant’s plan.
For a day-by-day sequence of jobs on each machine (a dispatch list or a Gantt chart) you need finite scheduling; see advanced planning and scheduling. This template does not check routing order either: plan a job’s second operation in the same week as its first, or later.
What is in the Excel workbook
| Sheet | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Schedule | One row per operation: work order, work center, hours, planned week, late flag, short part, PO, status |
| Load | Each work center’s weekly capacity, a load % grid with overloads in red, and one line per work center per week: available hours, planned hours, load % |
| MPS | Forecast, customer orders, projected balance, MPS quantity and available to promise (what sales can still promise a new order) by week, with the time fences |
| Materials | Each part for one build: required, on hand, on order arriving in time, short |
| Plan vs actual | The week each operation finished, and schedule attainment: the share of operations planned through the week you measure that finished by their planned week |
Shaded cells are inputs; every other number is a formula, so the workbook keeps working after you change it.
The math behind the schedule
Operation hours = setup hours + quantity x run minutes each / 60
Available hours a week = machines or people x hours a day x days a week x efficiency
Load % = planned hours / available hours, per work center per week
In the valve plant example, two mills run 8 hours a day, 5 days a week at 100% efficiency: 80 hours. Week 2 already holds 62 hours when a rush order for 160 VA-40 valves at 9 minutes each adds 24 (160 x 9 / 60), so the mills reach 86 hours, 108%. Week 3 has 25 hours free, so the planner moves a 10-hour stock job there: week 2 drops to 76 hours, 95%, and week 3 rises to 81%.
Done operations stay in their week’s load: they used that week’s hours, so the load still shows whether the week’s plan fit.
An overload has five fixes: overtime, moving a job to a week with room, another work center, outsourcing, or a new promise date. Pick the cheapest and write down who agreed.
Master production schedule example
The VB-25 valve is a repeat item kept in stock, made in lots of 480, with 120 on hand and a safety stock of 50; a make-to-order shop uses a master schedule the same way for its repeat items. Weeks 1 and 2 are frozen (inside the demand time fence): only customer orders count as demand. Weeks 3 and 4 are firm: up to the planning time fence (week 4 here), any change needs the production manager’s yes. After week 4 the plan uses the larger of forecast and orders.
| Week | Forecast | Orders | Demand used | MPS | Balance | Available to promise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 200 | 210 | 210 | 480 | 390 | 90 |
| 2 | 200 | 150 | 150 | - | 240 | - |
| 3 | 220 | 230 | 230 | 480 | 490 | 0 |
| 4 | 220 | 400 | 400 | - | 90 | - |
| 5 | 240 | 60 | 240 | 480 | 330 | 390 |
| 6 | 240 | 30 | 240 | - | 90 | - |
| 7 | 240 | 0 | 240 | 480 | 330 | 480 |
| 8 | 240 | 0 | 240 | - | 90 | - |
Balance = last week’s balance + MPS - demand used. Available to promise uses the discrete method: week 1 is stock plus that week’s MPS less the orders until the next MPS week (120 + 480 - 210 - 150 = 240). Week 3’s 480 is 150 short of the 630 ordered in weeks 3 and 4, so the 150 comes off week 1’s 240, leaving 90 to promise now. Week 5’s 390 is 480 less the 60 and 30 ordered in weeks 5 and 6.
The MPS quantity is whatever keeps the balance at or above safety stock, rounded up to whole lots.
Material check before release
Required is quantity per unit x units to build; short is required less on hand less on order arriving in time. For the 160 rush valves, 400 seal kits cover the 320 needed, but 50 solenoids on hand plus 100 on a confirmed PO leave the build 10 short. Count only POs with a supplier-confirmed date before the build starts.
When the spreadsheet stops working
It stops working when two people edit it, when operations change daily, or when supplier dates move faster than anyone types them in. Then the choice is an ERP’s planning module (MRP in your ERP), finite scheduling software (advanced planning and scheduling), or both.
Frequently asked questions
How do I make a production schedule in Excel?
List one row per operation with its work center, hours and planned week, put each work center’s weekly hours on a second sheet, and add the hours up with SUMIFS by work center and week. The download above is that workbook, already built, with the formulas showing.
What is the difference between a production plan and a production schedule?
The plan sets how much of each product to make by week or month. The schedule puts each operation on a work center in a week, so the load against capacity can be checked.
What is a capacity planning template?
A sheet that sets the hours each work center can run against the hours the orders need, week by week. The Load sheet in this workbook is one: it shows load % per work center per week and marks every week over 100%.
What is a master production schedule?
The plan of which finished items to build, how many and in which week, set from orders and forecast against stock. It also shows what sales can still promise. The Master schedule view above works one item through 4 to 12 weeks.
Does my ERP check capacity when it plans?
Business Central’s MPS and MRP planning runs assume infinite capacity (Microsoft Learn), so a separate load check like this one is what catches the overloaded weeks.
Related tools
Where Morsa fits
Re-plan the week when an order turns urgent.
Morsa re-plans the schedule when an order goes urgent or a supplier slips, shows what moves, and updates the ERP once you approve, working in your email, Teams or whatever your plant already uses.
