help-planning

[Nilimand]

We carry circa 25 products.
Each product needs to be processed in 2-3 stages. circa 20 minutes/
stage.
Raw materials come in several times a month. However for some products
the raw materials are readily available while for others 1-2 months
are necessary.
Each product is packaged differently.
Each consignment consists of a product mix. (between 1 and 25) There
are circa 5 large customers (2000 products/month) , 5 medium ones (200/
month) and 10 small ones (20/month). (but none of these
order every single month). At the moment most customers need to wait
circa 2 months but the planning must be improved as sometimes an order
can be fulfilled in 2 days.

I need to:

1. provide future delivery dates to customers
2. plan work shifts (1-4 people)
3. plan which products to produce (from planned arrival date of raw
material. I know 2-3 weeks in advance)
4. plan quantities to produce for each run. (At the moment we run
5-10 products a day)
5. optional-prepare some production benchmarks (per shift and per
product). i have a vague idea though.
6. optional- calculate true cost per order ( in terms of matrials +
man hours)


What should i use (on a limited budget) ??

* Excel template ?
* Access template ?
* online solution ?

 

[Dave]

Hi,
Both Excel and Access would be suitable. However. if you don't know where to
start with either, you will probably need some consultancy help. This group
is very good for solving specific problems, but is not really able to provide
extensive set-up-from-scratch help.
Still, there may be someone out there who would like to prove me wrong.
Regards - Dave.