Smart Production Planning

Smart Production Planning was the landmark enterprise system in my consulting career: a constraint-based planning platform for a global medical manufacturer.

Scale and context

• 3-year engagement
• Team of 4
• 100,000+ production lots
• Rolled out across multiple global facilities

Before this system, critical planning workflows were Excel-driven: manual, error-prone, and difficult to optimize.

What I built

• Web-based planning platform replacing spreadsheet workflows
• OptaPlanner-based constraint-satisfaction engine
• Clear split between:
  • hard constraints (for example equipment compatibility and sequencing)
  • soft constraints with configurable optimization weights
• Interactive planning board with manual override and feedback loop

The key architectural challenge was not the optimization algorithm itself. It was the abstraction layer that let plant managers tune soft constraints without engineering changes.

My role

I worked as Architect and Lead Developer from the first client call through production support, owning architecture end-to-end and staying hands-on in delivery.

Outcome

• ~90% planning workload reduction
• Finer planning granularity than manual processes could sustain
• Successful rollout to additional facilities

Note: this predates the current LLM/agent wave; the impact came from optimization architecture, workflow design, and operational fit.