{"id":14647,"date":"2026-05-05T09:09:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T07:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/optano.com\/?p=14647"},"modified":"2026-05-05T09:09:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T07:09:31","slug":"insights-into-stock-and-production-planning-in-chemistry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/optano.com\/en\/media\/insight\/2\/insights-bestands-und-produktionsplanung-chemie\/","title":{"rendered":"Insights: Inventory and Production Planning in Chemicals"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Material and Production Planning in Chemistry<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Why Excel Reaches Its Limits with Conflicting Goals <\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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A high-priority order comes in at short notice. The desired product is important to the customer, but the ongoing campaign in the plant has already started. Should production be brought forward, even though this threatens additional changeovers, more off-grade material, and new gaps in the remaining schedule? Or is it better to first deliver from stock, thereby depleting safety stocks more quickly?<\/p>

It is precisely in situations like these that it becomes clear why inventory and production planning in chemistry is not just a calculation problem. Service level, stock levels, plant utilization, and capital commitment are closely related. What might appear as a series of individual decisions in a table is, in practice, a cohesive conflict of objectives.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Inventory often shows a coordination problem<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In planning, larger inventories are often understood as a safety net. However, in many chemical companies, they are more of a sign that decisions about production, supply, and service are not cleanly aligned. If safety stocks are increased in isolation, it improves delivery capability in the short term. However, at the same time, capital commitment increases, and the actual cause of uncertainty remains.<\/p>

For CFO-related issues, this is precisely what's crucial: More inventory doesn't automatically create more robustness. It can also be an expression of planning that doesn't resolve objective conflicts but merely buffers them. This then ties up capital without making operational control truly more stable.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\u201eWhat looks simple in Excel collides with conversions, off-grade, and bottlenecks in the plant.\u201c<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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The apparent freedom in Excel does not exist in production reality.<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In chemistry, planning is rarely freely movable. Before a plan is adjusted, fixed or preferred batch sizes, sequence-dependent changeovers, off-grade losses during product changes, tank and storage limits, bottleneck equipment, raw material availability, and delivery windows already have an effect. Any change in one area causes consequences in several others.<\/p>

This is especially true when an ongoing campaign is to be interrupted to pull a product forward. In Excel, this decision can often be quickly visualized: pull forward a quantity, reduce inventory, secure a deadline. The consequential costs become less visible. Additional retooling consumes capacity, changeovers create scrap or off-grade material, downstream products face new risks, and the inventory impact shifts over several periods. The table then shows a decision, but not necessarily its full consequence.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Disruptions make separate planning particularly vulnerable.\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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As soon as a facility fails in the short term or a raw material is delayed, the coordination effort increases exponentially. Then inventories, production quantities, delivery commitments, and often cross-site flows must be re-coordinated. In separate tables, this is not only slow. It also easily creates version conflicts and a false sense of security, because individual tables appear consistent, but the overall plan no longer fits together.<\/p>

Especially in industries with limited leeway, the quality of coordination itself becomes the crucial lever. Where buffers in plants and tanks are scarce, it becomes particularly apparent whether planning was truly conceived cohesively or just maintained in parallel.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Further interesting content<\/p>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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