What Is The Main Purpose Of Production Planning?

What Is the Main Purpose of Production Planning?

In this blog, I want to talk to you about a key question: What is the true purpose of production planning? Yes, it involves timelines, trade flow, and showing how the project will finish—but there’s something even more important.

In my mind, ensuring the plan can happen constraint- and roadblock-free is almost more important than the plan itself. That may sound bold, but hear me out.

It’s More Than Just a Pretty Plan:

Production planning isn’t just about laying out a schedule. It’s about making sure the design, fabrication, delivery, permissions, and coordination are all done ahead of time. A beautiful diagonal line on a Gantt chart means nothing if submittals are late, materials aren’t ordered, or trade partners are unprepared.

That’s why, in this blog, I want to shift the focus slightly—from the field execution side of the production plan to how we enable that plan using supply chains and secondary systems (as Todd Zabel calls them).

The True Power of Production Planning:

When trades hit the site, they usually know how to maintain their rhythm. The real job of construction management is twofold:

1. Help them stay on that rhythm.
2. Ensure everything is ready so they can be successful.

This includes:

• Buyout.
• Permitting.
• Trade partner prep.
• Procurement of long-lead items.

These components must all be aligned with the master plan.

A Smart Way to Handle Procurement:

Now here’s something that might sound funny—but is totally practical. In the absence of perfect info, you can even use ChatGPT to get ballpark durations for things like submittal prep, review times, lead times, and delivery windows. For example:
“We’re building a three-story, $120M multifamily in Buckeye, AZ—how long for switchgear procurement?” It gives you a solid starting point, which you can later confirm with trade partners.

Once verified, you link that information to the production plan in InTakt—tracking everything from submittal prep through delivery with buffers in between. That way, each long-lead item is properly timed.

Why Procurement Logs Still Matter:

Procurement logs may sound old-school, but they’re essential. It’s surprising how often trade partners cite procurement as a top challenge—yet they’re not tracking it.

As general contractors, we must:

• Track procurement activities.
• Link them directly to production tasks.
• Meet weekly to review and recover where needed.

Here’s the Bottom Line:

You need two things:

1. Long-lead items embedded inside your production plan.
2. A live, accurate procurement log reviewed regularly with the PM, Supers, and Pes.

Most teams fail in procurement planning for two reasons:

• They don’t start early enough.
• They don’t monitor it consistently.

If you can see it, you can fix it. That’s the magic of visual planning tied with active procurement tracking. That’s what production planning is really about.

Key Takeaway:

Production planning isn’t just about scheduling tasks—it’s about proactively removing roadblocks before work begins. The real value lies in tracking procurement, aligning secondary systems, and preparing trade partners so the plan can actually happen without delays.