The course provides the foundational knowledge that students need for preparing production planning. A demand forecast for a product is required so that the machnine and workforce capacity of a plant can be assessed. Business students should be able to use forecasting methods before preparing production plans. According to this demand forecast the quantity of the machinery and workforce level computations will be practically displayed. Firms hold inventory when the production exceeds demand. Inventory management , assesment of optimal amount of inventory level , and utilization of techniques such as MRP, ERP, and the JIT will be covered in the course. The students should be able to prepare monthly and yearly plans and transfer them into detailed programs. In short, the course intends to lay the theoretical and conceptual background for the students before preparing production plan and equip prospective managers with information to make production decisions.

The effect of the production system to the production plans, forecasting and classification of demand, demand research methods, statistical demand forecasting methods, the regression line, trend analysis, the use of forecasting, capacity planning, capacity, capacity balancing problem, need for labor-force, machine requirements,analysis of breakeven point , inventory types, inventory costs, inventory control models, Economic Order Quantity calculations, MRP tree and MRP table, ERP, JIT , Kanban systems, production plan, weekly and monthly production planning, production planning, preparing strategies, sorting and loading problems, Gantt diagram, critical path diagram, PERT method, production programming examples.