Production schedule template

• 6 groups
• 25 tasks
• 2 milestones
• 27 dependencies
• About 10 weeks
• Updated October 20, 2026

We make Ganttile. The order, quantities and durations in this template are sample data for a made-up order, so replace them with your own.

What kind of production schedule is this?

A schedule for making one customer order in a factory or workshop, from the purchase order arriving to the goods leaving on a truck. The sample is 3,000 units of one part, made in three batches of 1,000, and every step that has to wait for another one is linked to it.

It is not a film or video production schedule. Shooting schedules are organised around scenes, locations and cast days, and this chart has none of those.

Use it when a planner, a production manager or the owner of a small manufacturer needs one dated plan that sales, purchasing, the shop floor and quality can all read. It answers the question a customer asks first: when will it ship?

What happens in each part of the run?

Six groups, roughly in the order the work happens, although three of them overlap on purpose. The weeks below describe the sample.

Every task name starts with the role that owns it, because a copied template has no people in it. Change Sales, Purchasing or Quality to a name when you copy the plan, so the chart says who to ask.

Why is the raw material the bar to watch?

Because it is the longest wait, and the first batch cannot start until it ends. In the sample the supplier needs four weeks from the purchase order, and once the order is placed nothing the factory does will shorten that.

The plan uses the wait instead of sitting through it. Tooling, machine setup, the first article run and its inspection all happen while the material is on its way, so the process is proven by the time the material arrives. Done one after the other, the same work would push the first batch back by about four weeks.

In your copy, turn on Hide weekends and Critical path under Settings. The bars that decide the ship date are then highlighted: the order steps, the purchase order, the material wait, goods in, the three batches, and the last inspection, packing and release. Tooling and the first article are not on that list, which is the point. If float is new to you, reading the critical path explains it.

Turn on Auto schedule as well and drag the material wait a week longer. Everything linked after it moves, and the shipment date with it. That is the quickest way to answer the question every planner gets: what happens if the supplier is late?

When can the first batch start?

When two things are true: the material is in and inspected, and the customer has approved the first article. Batch 1 is linked to both, and in the sample the material arrives four days after the approval.

Those four days are all the room the first article has. If the customer's review takes a week and a half instead of three days, it uses them up, and from then on the approval sets the start of production. Ask the customer how long their sign-off really takes before you promise a ship date.

One assumption to check: the first article run uses material from stock or a supplier sample, because the main delivery has not arrived. If you have neither, link the first article run to the goods-in row instead. The approval then moves into week eight, and every batch after it moves by about ten days.

How do the batches, checks and packing overlap?

Like a short pipeline. While batch 2 runs, quality inspects and releases batch 1, and packing follows that release. Each batch has its own inspection row, so a problem found in batch 1 is found while there is still time to fix batch 3.

• Checks inside the batch: first-off and in-process checks happen while the batch runs, so they are part of the batch bar rather than extra rows.
• Release after the batch: the quality row after each batch is the final inspection that releases it. Nothing is packed before it is released.
• Packaging with room to spare: boxes and bought-in parts arrive weeks before packing needs them. That slack is deliberate, because running out of boxes is a poor reason to miss a ship date.
• Carrier booked from real dates: logistics books the collection once the last batch is off the machine, so the date is one the shop floor can meet.

If the customer accepts part deliveries, add a shipment milestone after batches 1 and 2 as well. Splitting the order that way is often the simplest way to get the customer something on the original date when one batch runs late.

What should you change for your own order?

1. Use real lead times. Put in the dates your suppliers confirm, and add the transport time if they quote ex works.
2. Set the batch size and count. Copy or delete batch rows to match how you will actually run the order, and keep each batch's inspection row with it.
3. Check the working week. If you hide weekends, make sure the supplier wait still covers the calendar days they quoted, since the bar then counts working days.
4. Add the customer's required date. A third milestone for it shows the gap between that date and Order shipped at a glance.
5. Name the owners. Replace each role with a person. Export a PDF or image to send the customer when they need an update.

Click Use template and the whole schedule is copied into your account starting on the coming Monday, with the links, estimates and checklists in place. The preview opens at Month zoom, which shows the ten weeks as week columns. When the plan looks right, export it as a PDF or an image for the customer, or as Excel or Microsoft Project XML for someone who works in those tools.

Is this a replacement for MRP or a scheduling system?

No. This is a plan for one order that people can read and change. It does not hold stock levels, turn a bill of materials into purchase suggestions, or check whether a machine is already booked by another job. Those are the jobs of an MRP or ERP system and of finite-capacity scheduling software, which sequence work across machines and shifts.

What a Gantt chart does well is show the sequence and the waits in a way the whole team and the customer understand without training. Ganttile is free, and you can open several orders on one chart to see when two of them want the same week on a machine. It will not stop you booking both, though. If capacity clashes are a weekly problem, that part of the job has outgrown a Gantt chart, and the chart is better kept for the order-level plan you share.