Production planning systems and methods are described that enable production planners to see how capacity decisions affect total production costs and to understand the cost trade offs between excess capacity and inventory and, thereby, enable them to make appropriate manufacturing capacity level and inventory level decisions. In one aspect, a production planner may utilize the production planning systems and methods to plan inventory and capacity levels for one or more products produced on a manufacturing line. In addition to setting capacity and inventory levels, the production planner may use the production planning systems and methods to understand the impact of certain changes (e.g., reducing set-up time or down time, or moving products from one manufacturing line to another) on total production costs.
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