The need for manufacturing instructions to link planning and performance

Production instructions hold significant importance in breaking down a production plan based on order information for the shop floor. Entering performance data against these instructions is the greatest operational challenge in managing a production management system and a key criterion for determining the success or failure of its implementation.

Memories from My Bali Days

When I worked in furniture manufacturing and export in Bali, I issued purchase orders to the Bali sales office of a furniture factory in Jepara, Central Java, based on regular orders from key clients and custom orders tied to restaurant or café openings or renovations.
Unlike mass production, this was make-to-order, so progress checks and new quote requests from customers were frequent, requiring delivery date responses.
Progress, naturally, is the percentage of production completed against orders. The initial furniture-making process involves an oven-drying step for wood, where the production side batches items to some extent.
Though we specified delivery dates, people from Central Java, even among Indonesians, are particularly laid-back. Even if we ordered cabinets with the same delivery date, the production side might, at their discretion, throw in wood for next month’s unordered Batavia chairs for easier batching. Those guys...

Worse still, they’d procure materials (production prep) based on their convenience. Teak needed for near-term deliveries might not be secured enough, while mahogany for later orders was stockpiled.
What happens then? One day, you get a devilish call:

Rising wood prices squeeze our quotes, of course. Being the only factory making high-quality furniture at reasonable prices, we couldn’t push back hard.
If the Bali sales office had issued production instructions tied to orders—considering items and delivery dates—for the oven process, the production side could’ve procured materials accordingly, and proper batching would’ve happened.
Since downstream processes flow automatically, responding to customer order progress would’ve been easier for me.
Just as purchase orders are indirect instructions to the production side—leading them to decide material prep and oven batching at their discretion—without production instructions broken down from a production plan, the shop floor tends to produce based on its own judgment.
I think this reflects the downside of info flowing directly from sales to the shop floor without passing through production management. Looking back, it was a good experience (distant gaze).
This is a personal example of realizing production instructions’ importance. Without producing (or recording performance) against order-based plans, orders and production don’t align.
This harms the factory’s core mission: “Shipping high-quality products without delays.”

Linking Production Plans and Performance

After receiving order info, the flow is to translate it into a production plan, production instructions, and performance entry. Operating this seamlessly in a system is the biggest hurdle in implementing production management systems.
In real operations, production plans to performance might run unconsciously, but systemization requires inserting production instructions—a tangible class between plan and performance—and entering performance against them.

Even with a production management system in place, most factories don’t use MRP. Without MRP, unplanned production instructions must be manually registered per process.
This method is operationally clear, but without a simple instruction issuance mechanism, it’s labor-intensive. For production management, issuing instructions per process manually in the system is a hassle; for the shop floor, entering performance against them is a burden.
Here, both sides align: it’s quicker for production management to directly enter unplanned performance into the system using daily reports from the shop floor.
Typically, production follows an Excel plan from production management, with daily or shift reports submitted. If monthly order volumes are stable, shipping may face no major issues.
But with high-variety, low-volume production and unstable order volumes, delivery delay risks rise for these reasons:

This is why I often feel “production plans aren’t prioritized enough” and why I wanted to highlight that production instructions are crucial for breaking down order-based plans for the shop floor.