Master Production Schedule: How to grow your manufacturing business

Sometimes, it feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day — scratch that, for many small businesses there aren’t. Oftentimes you’ll feel like you are constantly playing catch-up. You get one order away on deadlines when another comes in. And preparing for Black Friday, Cyber Monday or the Christmas rush? The less said about that the better! Spending more money to increase productivity seems like the only way out, but tight margins can make this difficult. But there is another way. You need to maximize your most valuable resource — time.

Every master production schedule tracks inventory, staffing, and production.

Mismanage one of these areas and it drags the whole system down. This is one of the biggest challenges facing small manufacturers - integrating each part of their business so it cohesively works together and optimizes time.

Believe it or not, many small business owners will get by without setting up a master production schedule. Of course you can get by, but as your business grows, cutting foundational corners like this will catch up with you and affect your ability to scale.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the technical lingo and specialized knowledge. Many manufacturing businesses grew out of passion projects. In fact, most small business owners never went to business school. Suddenly having to deal with financial reports and a host of other tasks like managing inventory, accounting and orders from multiple sales channels will make you feel like a fish out of water.

When your business grows and you take on a few more employees, it’s easy to lose track of things. Perhaps you stay up late each night cutting down your backlog of tasks. You’re able stay on top of things, but it’s a struggle and this is when mistakes will mount and start to affect your bottom line.

Unclear task assignments can lead to unbalanced sub-assembly completion, unplanned bottlenecks and unscheduled downtime. All activity on your shop floor should be flowing smoothly from station to station, worker to worker.

If something is not working as it should, it not only causes your production to fall, but your staff morale to suffer. This will lead to lower motivation and lower performance levels. This is why floor level control is so important to customer satisfaction and growing your business.

How you deal with your orders directly affects your customers’ trust in you. Don’t underestimate the value of brand. Companies like Ikea spend decades building up a positive, recognizable brand. They are very careful how they present themselves to the world, as they know it could mean the difference between life and death for the business.

What if we told you that you can save many hours each week, without hiring anybody? What more could you do to grow your business? Don’t let the business of running your business take you away from what you love to do.

A match made in Heaven: QuickBooks Commerce + KatanaMRP

That’s where the QuickBooks Commerce & Katana integration comes in.

Together, QuickBooks Commerce and Katana MRP let manufacturers manage their entire multi-stage production process, workshop task assignments and master production schedule. The two systems sync seamlessly to handle complex manufacturing workflows, total inventory, or multichannel sales orders - Katana manages production and QuickBooks Commerce manages the rest, from order through to fulfillment.

The QuickBooks Commerce & Katana integration is your ultimate toolset for inventory, order and manufacturing management. It delivers a ready-made master production schedule right to your fingertips.

You can see your staff, materials, and operations in an easy-to-understand way. You can clearly see where every staff member should go and what they need to do. This makes task assignments clear and easy to understand, and you can do it from anywhere. Just assign tasks and your employees see real-time updates.

Keep track of all stock at all times. Know where everything goes. Ensure operations flows perfectly. 

Get your floor level control back on track — crush your sales orders week in week out.