Does Odoo Have Finite Capacity Scheduling? The Plan Button Explained, and When to Add SkyPlanner APS

1. Switch on work orders and set up work centers

Go to Manufacturing > Configuration > Settings and enable Work Orders. Work Centers then appear under Configuration. Each work center (mrp.workcenter) carries the fields the planner uses:

Field	What it does in planning
Working Hours	The resource calendar the work center runs on. Default “Standard 40 hours/week”, Monday to Friday
Time Efficiency	Percentage that speeds up or slows down every work order on this work center
Setup Time / Cleanup Time	Minutes added before and after each work order
Alternative Workcenters	Other work centers Plan may use instead
Product Capacities tab	Pieces per cycle and product-specific setup and cleanup minutes (mrp.workcenter.capacity)
OEE Target	Performance target for reporting, not a planning input
Allowed Employees	Who may work here. A filter, not a capacity

2. Operations on the bill of materials

There is no shared routing master. Operations live on each BoM, on the Operations tab (mrp.routing.workcenter). Each operation has a Work Center and a Duration Computation: a fixed time you enter, or a time computed from the last work orders (10 by default). Expected duration is setup plus cleanup plus cycles times cycle time, with the cycle part divided by Time Efficiency (mrp_routing.py).

With Work Order Dependencies enabled, an operation can be Blocked By another. Odoo’s docs: “A blocked work order is scheduled at the end of the time period specified in the Expected Duration field of the work order that precedes it.” (source)

3. Confirm the MO, then press Plan

Confirming a manufacturing order (mrp.production) creates its work orders (mrp.workorder). Pressing Plan on the MO starts from the final work orders and recursively plans each blocking work order first. Every work order is placed forward in time after its predecessors. For each work order Odoo:

1. Takes the latest of the MO start, now, and the end of any blocking work orders.
2. Tries the primary work center and every Alternative Workcenter.
3. Searches forward on each calendar for the first free interval long enough for the expected duration.
4. Picks the work center that finishes earliest and books the slot as a resource.calendar.leaves record on that calendar.

The 19.0 source states the rule plainly: “The available interval is disjoinct with all other workorders planned on this workcenter” (mrp_workcenter.py). That is the finite part. A work order that hits a closure continues in the next working interval. If nothing fits within 700 days (the default search window), Plan stops with “Impossible to plan the workorder.”

4. Time off and alternatives

With the Time Off app and developer mode you can block a work center for maintenance or a holiday. Plan then sends work orders to the Alternative Workcenters. Without an alternative, Odoo’s docs say “work orders begin to pile up at the work center until it is operational again” (source).

5. Review and adjust

Manufacturing > Planning > Planning by Production and Planning by Workcenter open the Work Orders Planning views. Enterprise shows a Gantt chart with drag and drop. Community shows list, calendar, pivot and graph views. The docs describe adjustment as manual: “Times and planned work centers can be changed by clicking to access the individual work order.” (source)

Odoo’s Plan button does the job when:

• Each operation has one obvious work center and volumes are moderate.
• Few orders compete for the same bottleneck, so first come, first served gives acceptable dates.
• Your alternative machines are identical, so Alternative Workcenters plus Time Off cover most disruptions.
• Setups are short or do not depend on the previous job.
• A planner can review Planning by Workcenter once a day and adjust the few conflicts by hand.

If that describes your plant, put your effort into clean data. Give every work center a calendar and enter realistic Setup and Cleanup Time. Use fixed durations where history is noisy, switch dependencies on, and plan MOs in priority order.

SkyPlanner APS answers each limit listed above:

• First come, first served becomes a real sequence. The Arcturus AI engine schedules all open orders together against finite capacity in seconds, ordered by completion date, priority, customer priority, Fast Track and Dynamic Priorities.
• Fixed setups become shorter setups. A setting time matrix holds the changeover between each pair of products, and it can differ by direction: blue to red 30 minutes, red to blue 60. The scheduler picks the order with least setup and runs similar jobs in succession.
• One constraint becomes all of them. Workstations, shifts, personnel, absences, tools and materials are checked in the same schedule. Tools are finite, so a fixture in use on one machine is not booked on another at the same time. A job can need several operators at once, and the engine turns to alternative machines or personnel when the primary resource is unavailable. Workstation groups, efficiencies and splitting one job across workstations are part of the same model. The material check covers stock on hand and open purchase.order lines: ordered components count as available on the PO delivery date, and stock updates when the PO is marked Delivered.
• Sub-assemblies line up. Subproducts and multi-level products are scheduled so the parts are ready when the assembly needs them.
• Manual replanning becomes Autopilot. Autopilot reschedules automatically when production changes, within your locks, Running Time Lock and priorities.
• Community gets a Gantt and a shop floor. Planners edit an interactive Gantt timeline. Operators see their queue and log work on phone or tablet with Mobile Confirmations, Production Timer and Quick Log Mode.

Odoo stays the system of record for products, BoMs, inventory, purchasing and accounting. SkyPlanner integrates with it in both directions over the External JSON-2 API, or XML-RPC and JSON-RPC on older versions:

• In: mrp.production, mrp.workorder, mrp.workcenter, mrp.bom and open purchase.order lines.
• Back: planned start, end and the chosen work center, with a write on each mrp.workorder (date_start, date_finished, workcenter_id). This moves Odoo’s own calendar booking, so Odoo’s planning views show SkyPlanner’s dates.
• Shop floor: operator confirmations are created as mrp.workcenter.productivity Time Logs.

SkyPlanner webhooks push schedule changes as they happen. Every plant runs Odoo differently, with its own operations, calendars and custom modules. The SkyPlanner team configures the integration to your setup during onboarding and supports it after go-live. Your Odoo partner or your own developers can also build on SkyPlanner’s documented REST API (API reference). An API key is enough to start. API and feature details are in the SkyPlanner docs.

Choose SkyPlanner when many orders compete for the same bottlenecks and due dates must set the sequence across all of them.

Choose SkyPlanner when changeovers depend on sequence, or shared tools and multi-operator jobs decide what can run next.

Choose SkyPlanner when you replan several times a week and want a working schedule of your own production in weeks rather than after a long project.

Start with a CSV or XLSX export in the 30-day free trial (up to 20 workstations, no credit card) and compare SkyPlanner’s schedule with your Plan button results. After that, pricing is from 199 € per month with 5 workstations included, billed monthly, cancel any time. The integration is quoted up front for your process and needs, together with your plan, so you see the full cost before you start. Implementation is normally completed within weeks after onboarding starts. See pricing and features.

More on SkyPlanner for Odoo, the Odoo integration guide and other ERP integrations.