Rush orders slot in automatically
A sooner-than-planned order gets fitted into the schedule on its own — no manual rework.
Mid-Size Job Shop · Precision CNC Machining
One rush order used to cost this shop an entire afternoon of replanning
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The Setup
Inside the Operation
A make-to-order machining shop producing precision metal parts for industrial and automotive clients. The whole week's plan lived in one spreadsheet, run by one planner — workable until a big customer asked for an order sooner than promised.
18
CNC & manual machines
35–45
active jobs/week
1 Planner
Spreadsheet-based
The Problems
Four ways the old system cost them every single week.
Manual planning created constant uncertainty, single-person dependency, and invisible capacity gaps across the shop floor.
A single rush order meant an afternoon of manually reworking the whole week's spreadsheet by hand.
Only the planner knew the real schedule, so nothing could move when they were away.
Capacity was a rough guess - no one could see which machines had room and which were overbooked.
Every change had to be re-checked by hand, and mistakes weren't caught until the floor fell behind.
The Change
What Changed With Smart PPS
The plan updates itself in real time
A machine going down triggers an immediate reschedule, not a wait until someone notices.
The floor can see the plan too
A shop-floor screen shows the live schedule, so the plan isn't locked in one person's head.
Estimated Impact
The Potential Impact of Smarter Planning
Estimated ranges based on typical job-shop scheduling scenarios — not measured results from a specific customer
60–70%
Time spent replanning each week
15-20%
Machine idle time
Hrs → Min
Rush-order rework turnaround
1 → All
People who can see the real schedule