Useful books for studying Production Planning
I have already seen many threads on this space asking for books to study production planning, therefore, I have decided to share here the books that I consider more relevant on this area.
Starting with the SAP Press “official” books, we can find some intersting topics abou production planning.
If you are just starting to learn production planning and you would like to learn a little bit about process before a deep dive into the technical aspects, a good book to start is The Goal. It is and easy reading book, as it is written as a novel and it provides an overview about the theory of constraints. You can find more details about this book on The Goal Summary & Book Review – Theory of Constraints Institute.
Another book that provides an overview of production planning and that may be interesting for someone starting on this area is Fundamentals of Production Planning and Control – Stephen N. Chapman.
A classic book about production planning is Toyota Production System, written by Taiichi Ohno. He is nothing else than the inventor of the Toyota Production System and Lean manufacturing.
You can also find several suggestions of books about this topic on the link Production Planning.com – Latest in Production Planning and Scheduling.
Now considering SAP Press official books, Uwe Goehring, who is a regular contributor of the SAP ERP Manufacturing – Production Planning (SAP PP) space recently wrote the book Materials Planning with SAP. von Uwe Goehring – by SAP PRESS, which provides an overview of Materials Planning on the ERP system. I did not read the book yet, but considering the quality of the content published bu Uwe on SCN, I’m quite sure that it is worth the price.
The SAP Press e-bite Running SAP MRP on SAP HANA | How-To Guide – by SAP PRESS also covers the new MRP topics, such as MRP on HANA, MRP Live, simplified MRP scenarios on S/4 HANA and Fiori Apps.
Another interesting book about PP is Production Planning and Control with SAP ERP. von Jaw – by SAP PRESS. It is more focused on production control and provides an overview about discrete, repetitive and process manufacturing types on the SAP ECC.
SAP Press also publshed the e-book Configuring Kanban in SAP ERP MM and PP – SAP PRESS, which is more specific about the Kanban functionality.
Uwe Goehring also suggested the book Factory Physics: Wallace J. Hopp, Mark L. Spearman and below you can find his testimonial about this book:
‘It’s a text book and very scientific (not really light reading) and I had to try very hard to keep on reading. But it is very, very useful and provides a solid understanding about the dynamics of manufacturing systems. I consider this understanding absolute necessary for any consultant who wants to help their customers to make more use of SAP’s production scheduling module and generally supply chain management. A good way to get into the inner workings of Factory Physics is through the lighter version written by Ed Pound: Factory Physics for Managers”
At last, there are the official SAP trainings, and the related documentation. Take a look on the following links for more details:
SCM130 – SAP ERP Planning & Manufacturing Overview
SCM240 – Production Planning in ERP
SCM310 – Production Orders in ERP
TSCM40 – Planning/Manufacturing I
TSCM42 – Planning/Manufacturing II
If you know any other interesting book about this topic, please share it on the comments and I’ll add to the list.
Very good Caetano!
I warmly recommend "The Goal" it's my bedside book. This book had an important contribution in my life make me start to develop a technical reading.
Flavio Molina
I completely agree with you Flávio. If you have any other book to recommend, feel free to share it on the comments.
Thanks Caetano for the mention! Just wanted to add another book to the list: Factory Physics by Spearman and Hopp (McGraw Hill). It's a text book and very scientific (not really light reading) and I had to try very hard to keep on reading. But it is very, very useful and provides a solid understanding about the dynamics of manufacturing systems. I consider this understanding absolute necessary for any consultant who wants to help their customers to make more use of SAP's production scheduling module and generally supply chain management. A good way to get into the inner workings of Factory Physics is through the lighter version written by Ed Pound: Factory Physics for Managers
Hi Uwe
Thank you for the suggestion.
Just added the book with your testimonial to the list.
BR
Caetano
Nice work Caetano!!
Would like to add my personnel favorite Production Planning by Jawad Akhtar, finding it interesting and its best suitable for people with single project experience can explore all.
🙂
Hi Otto
Thank you for the suggestion, but the book was already on the list.
BR
Caetano
Very good Caetano.
The TOC serial are all important to me.
Hi Caetano
Very good recommendation.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Caetano.
& congrats for you
if you have any IS MILL & IS GAS & OIL related books please share
Santosh P
Hi Caetano,
Very good list, and great idea to share it here on SCN.
For those interested in Demand Driven MRP (the future of MRP?) I would recommend the books by Chad Smith and Carol Ptak: Orlicky's MRP 3rd edition (last chapters are about DDMRP), and there's an upcoming book (out at the end of this month) that is supposed to be the definitive book about DDMRP (aptly named Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning). There is another book, by Chad and Debra Smith, that I think is a good companion to them: Demand Driven Performance: Operational Metrics for the 21st Century.
For those who liked The Goal and want more technical detail about thinks like Drum-Buffer-Rope you should look for Eli Schragenheim books (like Supply Chain Management at Warp Speed), or maybe Mandyam M. Srinivasan (Building Lean Supply Chains with the Theory of Constraints) or the huge and excellent TOC Handbook.
Regarding SAP Press I must say I was disappointed with Jawad Akhtar's book (sorry Jawad) but I'm also eager to get my hands on Uwe Goehring's book. I noticed Uwe already recommended the Factory Physics books, which yes, are highly recommended.
Regards,
Rui Dantas
Hello Rui,
Being the author of SAP PP book (published by SAP PRESS), I certainly welcome and highly respect your opinion. In fact, I would highly encourage you (and others) to share your thoughts on what you didn’t liked in the book or found topics/areas with insufficient coverage? Your feedback and input will help improve the future edition of the book.
A single point that I’d like to highlight here is that the first edition of the SAP PP book was already over 1030 pages (originally planned at 850 pages!). So, it’s almost impossible to cater to a diverse and huge global readers’ base!
Please feel free (and others are encouraged too!) to share your thoughts via email (due to time constraint, I don’t frequent SCN often) at my email address: jawad.akhtar@live.com
All the best and thank you again!
Regards,
Jawad
Hi Jawad,
I do appreciate the effort required to write a 1000+ pages book, and it was not my intention to undervalue that. I also accept the book can be a good general reference and starting point for SAP PP, maybe, as Caetano said, a bit more focused on the production control side.
Regards,
Rui Dantas
The Machine that changed the World.
The classic, nationally bestselling book that first articulated the principles of lean production, with a new foreword and afterword by the authors. (Amazon.com)
Good work! Caetano
Kind Regards,
Ibrahim
Hi Caetano,
Thanks for consolidating all the useful PP Books and sharing to all.
Thanks & Regards,
Saikrishna.