Simulating the Plan

The Simulator tab is where you run the batch plan against your real capacity and see what comes out the other side — before you release the order to the floor. It's the difference between releasing a plan and discovering on Day 8 that you don't have the capacity, and releasing a plan having already seen exactly that on Day 0.

What it shows you

For the current batch plan, the simulator runs each batch through each operation in sequence, charging time against the capacity of the Production Units assigned to those operations. It tells you:

Expected completion date per batch — when each batch would finish if it ran today against current capacity.
Bottleneck operation — which operation is the constraint for this plan. Usually one operation (often Stitching) sets the pace.
Capacity utilization per unit — which Production Units would be slammed and which would sit idle.
Cost timeline — when material consumption and labor cost would land across the calendar.

When to lean on it

The simulator earns its keep at three moments:

Before you release an order. Run the simulator with the batch plan you have. If the end date crashes past the customer commitment, you have a real conversation to have — with the planner, with sales, with the brand — before you've put cloth on the table.
When you change the plan. Swap from three batches to six, or move a batch to a different line — re-run the simulator and see whether the move actually helps.
When the floor is under load. With multiple orders open, run the simulator on a new order to see how it would slot in alongside the existing in-flight work.

The simulator doesn't commit anything. It reads the current Production Units, current open Batches, and the proposed plan, and tells you what it would look like. You can run it ten times in twenty minutes with different plans and pick the one that comes out best.

Image: The Production Order Simulator tab showing the batch-by-batch timeline, the bottleneck operation flagged, and capacity utilization across units.

A working example

Your three-batch dress order from the planner runs through the simulator. Output:

Batch 1 (Black) — completes in 6 days.
Batch 2 (Stone) — completes in 9 days, with a 1-day idle gap after cutting waiting for the stitching line.
Batch 3 (Navy) — completes in 13 days.

The brand committed to a 10-day lead time. Two batches over. You go back to the planner, split Batch 3 between two stitching lines, re-simulate, and now the plan completes in 9 days end-to-end with no batch missing the commit. Now you release.

What to do next

Once the simulator says yes, move the order to Released and the floor can start creating Production Batches against it.