For food & drink producers
Production planning software for food and drink manufacturers
Your production plan is only as good as the ingredients behind it. Leio takes the plan you already build, explodes it into what has to be bought and by when, raises and chases the purchase orders, and tells you which batches are not covered — while there is still time to fix it.
What production planning software does
Production planning software decides what to make, how much and in which week, then works out what that plan needs in materials and capacity. It is the layer between a demand forecast or an order book and the shop floor. Done properly it answers one question early enough to matter: can we actually build this, with the ingredients we have coming?
For a food or drink producer that question is nearly always a materials question. Capacity can usually be found — an extra shift, a weekend, a different line. A tanker of cream that was never ordered cannot be found on Thursday afternoon.
Production planning vs production scheduling
The two terms get used interchangeably by vendors, and they are not the same job. The distinction matters when you are choosing software, because tools built for one are usually poor at the other.
| Production planning | Production scheduling | |
|---|---|---|
| Horizon | Weeks to months | Hours to days |
| Decides | What and how much | What order, on what line |
| Constrained by | Materials, lead times | Changeovers, shifts |
| Owned by | Planner or ops manager | Production supervisor |
| Fails as | A shortage | An idle line |
A plan no supplier can deliver against does not get rescued by a better schedule. A good schedule cannot be built on a plan nobody bought the ingredients for. Most producers under 250 people have the scheduling side broadly under control — it happens in the room, daily, with people who know the lines. The planning side is where the spreadsheet is.
Where production plans break: a worked example
A sauce producer schedules a 6,000-jar run for Tuesday of week 3. The recipe uses 0.3 kg of tomato paste per jar, so the run needs 1,800 kg. Stock shows 900 kg. There is one open purchase order for 1,000 kg, confirmed by the supplier for the Monday of week 4.
The plan is 900 kg short on the day it runs, and the order that would have covered it lands six days late. Nothing here is complicated arithmetic. It is only hard because the production plan lives in one file, the stock figure in the ERP, and the confirmed date in an email — and the three are compared by a person, on a Monday, if that person has time.
Software earns its place by doing that comparison continuously. The shortage above is visible the moment the supplier's confirmation arrives, two weeks before the run, when the options are still cheap: pull the date, split the order, move the run, or make a smaller batch.
What to look for
- It takes your plan as it is. If the tool needs the production plan rebuilt inside it before it says anything useful, the project stalls at that step.
- It reads the mailbox, not just the ERP. Confirmed dates, short deliveries and substitutions arrive as email. A tool that only sees the ERP is planning against yesterday.
- It handles supplier reality. Minimum order quantities, pallet and tanker multiples, lead times that differ per supplier — not a clean weekly bucket.
- It executes, not just calculates. A suggestion list is a to-do list. The value is in the order being sent, chased and confirmed.
- It leaves the decision with the planner. Anything that commits spend on its own will be switched off within a month.
Where Leio fits
Leio is the material half of production planning. You keep planning production the way you do now — in your spreadsheet, your ERP or your scheduling tool. Leio takes that plan, explodes it against your recipes, stock and open orders, and runs the purchasing round it implies.
- Plan in, materials out
- Drop the production plan in any format. Leio turns it into dated requirements per ingredient and packaging item, netted against stock and everything already on order.
- Purchase orders raised and chased
- The orders the plan needs are drafted for your approval, sent, and followed up when a supplier goes quiet.
- Exceptions against the batches they threaten
- A slipped confirmation is only interesting if it breaks cover for something scheduled. That is what Leio surfaces — not a feed of every email.
- Your schedule stays yours
- Leio does not sequence lines, assign machines or run finite capacity scheduling. That decision belongs to the people standing next to the equipment.
"A system like this, for the lack of better phrase is idiot proof"
Nick
Supply Chain Director
Production planning software FAQs
What is production planning software?
Production planning software decides what to make, in what quantity and in what week, and works out the materials and capacity that plan requires. It answers the question "can we actually build this?" — as distinct from production scheduling software, which sequences the confirmed plan across lines, shifts and machines.
What is the difference between production planning and production scheduling?
Planning works in weeks and months and decides volumes, materials and feasibility. Scheduling works in days and hours and decides the order jobs run in, on which line, with which changeover. A plan that no supplier can deliver against is not fixed by a better schedule, and a good schedule cannot be built on a plan nobody has bought the ingredients for.
Does Leio schedule my production lines?
No. Leio does not sequence lines, allocate machines or run finite capacity scheduling. Your production schedule stays yours, in whatever tool or spreadsheet you already use. Leio takes that schedule and handles the material side of it: what it needs bought, by when, and what is not going to arrive in time.
What format does my production plan need to be in?
Whatever you already use. Production plans arrive as spreadsheets, ERP exports, shared sheets or a weekly export from a scheduling tool, and Leio takes them as they are rather than asking you to rebuild the plan in a new system first.
How does it know what each product needs?
From the recipes and bills of materials in your ERP, plus stock, open purchase orders, suppliers and lead times. Leio explodes the production plan against them to get a requirement per ingredient and packaging item, with a date attached to each.
We plan in a spreadsheet. Is that a problem?
No — most food and drink producers do, and rebuilding the plan in a new system is usually the reason planning projects stall. The problem is not the spreadsheet, it is that the spreadsheet goes stale the moment a supplier confirms a different date. Keeping the material picture current against the plan is the part worth automating first.
Related: food manufacturing software, supply planning software, and on the blog, the supply chain planning process and supply planning vs demand planning.
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