# Production Planning Software in Kettering > Production Planning Software for businesses in Kettering. CubeERP covers Kettering and Northampton, Wellingborough and Corby, with on-site implementation and support from our Olney office. **URL:** https://cubeerp.co.uk/software/production-planning-software/northamptonshire/kettering Kettering is well within our regular travel radius from Olney, which means implementation here is done in person rather than over a screen share. That matters more than it sounds: most of what a system needs to know is learned by standing in the building. ## Details - **Solution:** Production Planning Software - **Group:** Production - **Platform:** CubeERP (https://cubeerp.co.uk/platform) - **Location:** Kettering, Northamptonshire - **Distance from our Olney office:** 17 miles - well within our regular travel radius from Olney - **Postcode districts:** NN15, NN16 - **Also known as:** Production scheduling software, Capacity planning software, Finite capacity scheduling, Factory scheduling system, Shop floor scheduling software ## Coverage We cover Kettering and the surrounding area, including Town Centre, Weekley, Barton Seagrave, Burton Latimer and Rothwell, across the NN15 and NN16 postcode districts. We also work with businesses in Northampton, Wellingborough, Corby and Daventry and elsewhere in Northamptonshire. ## What is included - **Visual scheduling board:** A drag-and-drop schedule by work centre, machine or team, with shift patterns, planned maintenance and holidays taken into account rather than assumed away. - **Finite and infinite capacity:** Schedule to available capacity to get a realistic promise date, or infinitely to see the size of the overload you are being asked to absorb. - **Sequence that saves set-up:** Group by material, colour, tooling or size to cut changeovers, with sequencing rules per work centre rather than a single global assumption. - **Bottlenecks before they bite:** Load by work centre and period, showing where the constraint actually is this week - which is frequently not where everybody assumes it is. - **What-if a rush job:** Drop a hypothetical order into the plan and see exactly what it displaces before you agree to it, so an expedite is a commercial decision rather than a surprise. - **Promise dates you can defend:** Available-to-promise and capable-to-promise dates fed straight back into quoting and order entry, so sales stops guessing and operations stops absorbing the guess. ## Real-world use cases ### Every order marked urgent **Scenario:** A jobbing shop had a priority list where two-thirds of the jobs were flagged urgent. The real sequence was decided each morning by whoever shouted loudest, and set-up time was enormous. **Outcome:** A single scheduled sequence, visible to sales and the floor, replaced the shouting. Grouping by tooling cut changeovers substantially and on-time delivery improved without any new equipment. ### The bottleneck that had moved **Scenario:** Investment was being planned for the machining cell, which everybody knew was the constraint. It had been, three years earlier; the actual constraint had since moved to finishing. **Outcome:** Load reporting by work centre showed where the queue really was. A far cheaper change in finishing released more throughput than the machining investment would have. ### Rush jobs with invisible cost **Scenario:** Rush orders were accepted routinely because nobody could show what they displaced. Regular customers were quietly late, and the cause was never attributed. **Outcome:** What-if scheduling makes the trade-off explicit at the point of acceptance. Rush work is still taken - but now it is priced for what it actually costs. ## Figures - **Finite** Capacity, or infinite when you need it - **What-if** See what a rush job displaces - **Live** Sequence on the floor, not on paper ## Frequently asked questions **Is this a full APS system?** It covers what most SME manufacturers need from advanced planning and scheduling: finite capacity, sequencing rules, constraints and what-if. If you need optimisation across dozens of plants, tell us in discovery and we will say plainly if we are not the right fit. **How does it know how long a job takes?** From the routing initially, then from actual booked times. Standards that consistently differ from reality are highlighted so they can be corrected rather than silently absorbed into the plan. **Can we schedule people as well as machines?** Yes. Work centres can be constrained by skilled operators as well as equipment, with shift patterns, absence and skills matrices taken into account. **Does the schedule reach the shop floor?** Yes - the sequence appears on shop-floor terminals and boards, updating when the plan changes. Printed schedules go stale the moment they leave the printer, which is why the floor stops believing them. **How does this relate to MRP?** MRP decides what to make and buy and by when. Production planning decides whether it can actually be made in that order with the capacity you have. Both run on the same data, so they cannot contradict each other. ## Related solutions - **MRP Software** - Net demand against stock, work in progress and inbound purchases to produce a buy list and a make list you can actually act on. https://cubeerp.co.uk/software/mrp-software/northamptonshire/kettering - **Manufacturing Software** - Bills of materials, works orders, routings, shop-floor booking and real job costing - for businesses that make things to order. https://cubeerp.co.uk/software/manufacturing-software/northamptonshire/kettering - **Job Costing Software** - Know what every job actually cost - materials, labour, sub-contract and overhead - while it is running, not six weeks later. https://cubeerp.co.uk/software/job-costing-software/northamptonshire/kettering - **ERP Software** - One system for quotes, orders, stock, production, purchasing and invoicing - built in the UK for growing businesses. https://cubeerp.co.uk/software/erp-software/northamptonshire/kettering ## Elsewhere in Northamptonshire See https://cubeerp.co.uk/software/production-planning-software/northamptonshire for production planning software across Northamptonshire. ## Contact - **Product:** CubeERP - **Trading name of:** Cube Systems Limited (company number 17220899, ICO registration number ZC216972) - **Email:** hello@cubeerp.co.uk - **Sales:** sales@cubeerp.co.uk - **Support:** support@cubeerp.co.uk - **Telephone:** 01234 672 617 (+441234672617) - **Address:** Unit 11, Olney Business Park, Osier Way, Olney, Buckinghamshire, MK46 5FP - **Opening hours:** Monday to Friday, 9am to 5.30pm - **Part of:** Crushed Ice Group (https://crushedicegroup.co.uk)