RapidResource
BetaSee whether your skilled people and machines can actually deliver the plan, and keep the schedule current as production runs.
Resource schedule
People & machines against available capacity
Sound familiar?
The problems RapidResource solves
A production plan tells you the intent. Without resource intelligence, it can't tell you whether the intent is achievable — or what to do when production moves.
A plan with no capacity check
Orders have planned dates, but nothing confirms the people, machines, and cells are actually free to do the work.
With RapidResource: Demand is compared to real capacity, so you know whether the plan is achievable before you commit to it.
Skilled people are the real limit
The constraint is often a few skilled operators or one commissioning engineer — but the plan schedules as if labour is unlimited, so the overload only shows once a job is late.
With RapidResource: Overloaded people and machines are flagged against the schedule before they turn into a late order.
The plan is only as fresh as the last meeting
Most plans get reviewed in a weekly production meeting. The moment a job runs long or finishes early, the plan is out of date — and stays that way until everyone sits down again.
With RapidResource: Completions and delays feed back into the schedule as they happen, so the plan stays true between meetings, not just at them.
Standards nobody trusts
Standard times were set years ago. No one can see how they compare to what actually happens on the floor.
With RapidResource: Actual performance is measured against every standard time, feeding more accurate assumptions into future plans.
How it works
From production plan to live forecast
RapidResource starts from the RapidMES schedule and keeps refining it as real production data comes in.
Model people & machines
Your RapidMES processes already carry the operation standard times and resource requirements. In RapidResource you add the resources that meet them — operators, teams, cells, and machines — with their skills, availability, and capacity.
- People, with their skills, shift patterns, and holidays
- Machines and cells, with their running hours and capacity
- Skills defined once and shared across resources
- Operations ask for a skill, not a named person
- Change availability for any date range and see the work affected
Calculate demand & utilisation
RapidResource calculates the demand that planned operations create, totals it by resource and skill, and compares it to the capacity available — so you see exactly where, and by how much, you are short.
- Demand broken down by resource, team, and skill
- Utilisation over any date range you choose
- Overloaded people and machines clearly flagged
- See which operations are causing each overload
Schedule against capacity
Operations are scheduled to the people and machines able to do them, within their availability and capacity. Assign more than one where the job needs it, and get a warning if a change creates a constraint.
- Only qualified, available resources are offered
- Move work to another time or resource by hand
- A warning whenever a change would overload a resource
Recalculate live
As operations start and finish, RapidResource updates the forecast completion, carries the change through to later operations, and recalculates the schedule — without overwriting the original plan or historical actuals.
- See whether each operation is ahead, on, or behind schedule
- Recalculates on a set interval, and immediately when an operation starts or finishes, availability changes, or the schedule is edited
- Shows the capacity freed up or used by early and late finishes
- The plan, the forecast, and the actuals are kept separate
Refine your standards
See how each process performs against its standard — averages, distribution, observation counts — and edit the standard from the same view, with a full history of changes.
- Actual performance against standard, as time and a percentage
- Distribution of results and performance over time
- Filter by date, process, product, or resource
- The standard used at planning time is recorded
How it fits
Capacity planning without the complexity of an enterprise planning system
RapidMES is the core manufacturing execution and production planning platform. RapidResource is an optional bolt-on that adds resource intelligence — skilled people, machines, capacity, and dynamic scheduling — on top.
It consumes the orders, operations, planned dates, and process standards already defined in RapidMES, and gives back revised forecasts and constraint information. There is no separate implementation project, pricing is a monthly SaaS add-on, and because the RapidMES schedule always stays accessible, you can turn it off for good without losing your core production workflow.
Learn more about RapidMES“What are we making, and when do we plan to make it?”
- Orders & operations
- Basic calendar — move & extend
- Planned & actual dates
- Works with no resource data
“Do we have the people and capacity, and how should the plan respond?”
- People, skills & shift patterns
- Machine capacity & availability
- Utilisation & constraints
- Dynamic, live schedule forecast
FAQs
Common questions
Add resource intelligence when you're ready
RapidResource enhances the RapidMES schedule with capacity planning and dynamic scheduling. Book a demo to see it against your plan.