Prduction department:

Master Production Schedule (MPS) is a manufacturing plan that quantifies significant processes, parts, and other resources in order to optimize production, to identify bottlenecks, and to anticipate needs and completed goods. Since an MPS drives much factory activity, its quality dramatically affects a factory's profitability. Typical MPS's are created by software with significant user input and tweaking.
Due to software limitations, but especially the intense work required by the "Master Production Schedulers", schedules do not include every possible aspect of production, but only key elements that have proven their control effectivity, such as working hours, machines, available storage, and parts supply. The choice of what to model vary between companies and even between factories. The MPS is a statement of what the company expects to produce and purchase expressed in selected items, specific quantities and dates.
The MPS translates the business plan, including forecast demand, into a production plan using planned orders in a true multi-level optional component scheduling environment. Using MPS helps avoid shortages, costly expediting, last minute scheduling, and inefficient allocation of resources. Working with MPS allows businesses to consolidate planned parts, produce master schedules and forecasts for any level of the Bill of Material (BOM) for any type of part.