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The Plan Builds Itself. So What Happens to the Planner?
By Nadun Muthukumarana, Founder & CEO of V2T
29 September 2026
Reading time 5 minutes
It is 9pm, and Ruwan is still at his desk. A buyer moved a delivery date this afternoon, and he is rebuilding the plan line by line, strip by strip, the way he has for most of his career. At home, his first child has gone to bed without him again, and he is missing another evening with the newborn. The chair beside him has been empty for months. His last two assistants left within a year.
Earlier that day, he watched automatic planning at work. His order book went in, and a complete plan came out in minutes. He had two questions. First: do I still have a job? Second: if I do, will anyone ever want it after me?
The first question is about fear. The second is about the future of our industry. And the second question is the one that matters.
Ruwan is a composite, but I have met a version of him in many of the factories we work with. In over 30 years in technology, I have watched this fear arrive with every wave, from the internet to cloud. Almost nobody answers it sincerely. So let me try.
Empowered on Paper, Buried in Practice
Ask who owns plant performance, and in most factories the honest answer is planning. The planner decides what runs where, and when. They are accountable for delivery, for efficiency and, in the end, for margin. On paper, they are empowered to own the performance of the plant.
In practice, they are buried. Most of the day goes on moving strips in a back office, rebuilding the plan every time an order, a date or a line changes. There is no time left to own anything.
And the hours are not the worst of it. Senior planners tell me the same thing again and again: they cannot find an assistant who will stay long enough to become their successor. The new generation does not want a career moving strips on a board. So the best planner in the building cannot take leave, cannot step back and cannot retire, and everything they know lives in one head.
Let me put this plainly. This is not a failure of planners. It is a failure of the tools we gave them.
AI That Explains the Board Is Not AI That Plans
Automatic planning builds the whole plan from the order book in minutes, with delivery settled first. Autonomous planning, the next step, keeps it right as orders and the floor change. FlexPlan AI plans automatically today and is being built for autonomy on the same foundation.
Be careful what you call AI here. A chat assistant that describes the board still leaves the planner moving the strips.
When the plan builds itself, the strips go. The accountability stays, and so do the judgement and the knowledge of the floor. And planners can finally do the job they were hired for: managing performance.
A Tuesday in the New Job
8.30am, with the merchandisers. The plan was built before the first cup of tea. Ruwan walks the order book end to end with the merchandising team. Which orders are still waiting on fabric, trims or approvals? Which order details are wrong or missing? He fixes the inputs now, while it is still a conversation, not next month, when it is a late shipment.
10.30am, on the shop floor. He walks the lines. Line 7 is behind, and now he can see why: a new style still climbing its learning curve, and a machine waiting for a part. He talks to the supervisor. This is where the plan meets reality, and for the first time he is there to see it.
2pm, with the operations leaders. He sits down with the production manager and industrial engineering to review Plan to Performance, P2P for short: where the floor departed from the plan, why, and what to fix. A changeover ran long. A bottleneck operation needs another skilled operator. They agree the actions, and what the floor actually achieved feeds the next plan.
4pm, with the digital team. Three questions. What data do we capture that nobody uses? What do we need that we do not capture? What insight would help the floor tomorrow? Ruwan makes sure all three get answers, because he knows which numbers matter.
6pm. He goes home, in time to put the children to bed.
That is not a smaller job. It is a bigger one. It is the job planners were always meant to have.
Four Tariff Changes, One Cyclone and a Shorter Supplier List
US tariff rules have changed four times since April 2025. Conflict in the Middle East has made sailings longer and less reliable. In November 2025, a single cyclone disrupted 15 large garment factories in Sri Lanka. Every one of these shocks lands on the same desk: the planner's.
Your customers have changed too. The US Fashion Industry Association's 2026 study found that nearly half of leading US fashion companies plan to buy from fewer suppliers within two years, and more than half already use AI to forecast demand and plan stock. Your buyers are planning with AI. The suppliers they keep will be the ones that keep their dates.
And you cannot recruit your way out. ManpowerGroup's 2026 survey of more than 39,000 employers found that 72% already struggle to find the skilled people they need, in manufacturing as much as anywhere. The planners you have are the only people who know your floor.
To Planners: Someone Is Finally on Your Side
If you are a planner reading this, I want to be honest with you. This is not about replacing you. It is about giving you back the job you were hired to do.
I will not pretend nothing changes. Some habits built over many years will go, and that is uncomfortable. But look at what you get. Your time back. A seat at the table with operations, merchandising and digital, as the person who owns performance. And something to offer the next generation: a front-line career they will actually want, with you as their mentor, not their bottleneck.
Your job will change. We intend to change it with you, not to you.
To CEOs and CXOs: Your Planners Are Your Most Valuable Asset. Act Like It.
If you run a factory, here is what I would say to you directly:
Talk to your planners now, sincerely, before the rumours do. Tell them how automatic planning improves their job, not only the business.
Be in the room. This is a leadership conversation, not an IT project. Do not delegate it.
Keep the people you have, and let them own performance. You will not find many new ones in this market.
Measure them on what performance owners should own: efficiency, on-time delivery and P2P.
Start with your own order book. In our proofs of concept, plans were 5-8% more efficient and on-time delivery rose by more than 10 points, against each manufacturer's own plan. See it with your own eyes.
Do this, and your business will weather the headwinds first, then start to thrive. As performance rises, everyone prospers: the business, the planners and the people on the lines.
The Planner's Best Years Are Ahead
Every generation faces a moment when its tools change what the job can be. For production planners, this is that moment.
Back to Ruwan. A year from now, I hope he is on the floor at 10.30am and home for bedtime, and the chair beside him is no longer empty. His new assistant did not join to move strips. She joined to run performance, and Ruwan is teaching her how.
The plan builds itself. The planner runs the business. And everyone does better for it.
Ready to give your planners their time back?
At V2T, we built FlexPlan AI in Sri Lanka, for the way apparel is actually made. Bring us your order book and see a production-ready plan in minutes. Visit v2t.io/flexplan-ai, or reach out to me directly on LinkedIn.
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