Free Production Schedule Template (Excel)

What's in the production schedule template

The Production Schedule sheet holds up to 100 rows, one row per item per week. Each row captures the item or SKU, the week, forecast units, firm customer orders, planned production, and beginning inventory for that period.

This is a simplified master production schedule (MPS): the standard demand, production, and available-to-promise logic manufacturers use, built as one row per item per week rather than a rolling weekly grid.

Because it's row-by-row, you enter beginning inventory yourself on each line rather than the sheet carrying it forward from the previous week automatically - more on that below.

What calculates automatically

Demand takes the greater of forecast and firm customer orders for that row - the standard MPS consumption rule, so you're always planning against whichever number is bigger rather than double-counting both. Projected ending inventory adds beginning inventory and planned production, then subtracts demand, and available-to-promise (ATP) shows planned production plus beginning inventory minus customer orders.

Any row where projected ending inventory goes negative is flagged in red immediately, so a shortfall is visible the moment you enter the numbers rather than after you've built out the whole schedule.

The summary totals planned production and total demand across every row, and counts how many weeks show a negative ending inventory, so you can see at a glance how many periods need more production or a change to customer commitments.

What this template doesn't automate

This is a simplified, line-by-line MPS: beginning inventory for each row is a number you type in, not a value the sheet chains forward automatically from the previous week's projected ending. That's a deliberate trade-off - automatic week-to-week chaining adds formula complexity that breaks easily when rows are inserted, reordered, or an item has gaps in its schedule.

In practice, that means you copy last week's projected ending into this week's beginning inventory yourself. It's one extra manual step per row, in exchange for a schedule that stays correct even if you reorder items or add a week out of sequence.

Who this production schedule is for

Small manufacturers, contract producers, and ops planners who need item-level weekly production planning without implementing full MRP or ERP software are the core fit. If you're planning production for a handful of SKUs against forecast and firm orders, this gives you the standard MPS math without the platform.

It also works as a teaching or reference tool for planners learning master scheduling logic, since the demand, ending-inventory, and ATP formulas are visible and editable in the sheet rather than hidden inside software.