Answers to the most common questions on Teamcenter Easy Plan, covering advanced capabilities, configuration, integrations, and best practices.
Get answers to all the essential questions on Teamcenter Easy Plan, from Manufacturing Bill of Materials (MBOM), Bill of Process (BOP), and Bill of Equipment (BOE) management to line balancing, time analysis, electronic work instructions and integrated solutions.
Browse all the FAQs below:
Teamcenter Easy Plan is a modern, role-based and task-oriented web solution for manufacturing process planning, enabling the creation and management of MBOMs, BOPs, and shopfloor work instructions. It links engineering data with planning and validation, ensuring consistency from definition to execution.
Teamcenter Easy Plan supports manufacturing planners and engineers, industrial engineers, design engineers, simulation engineers, and shopfloor operators. Each role focuses on specific tasks and outcomes, from defining MBOMs and BOPs to validating processes and executing work instructions on the shopfloor.
Teamcenter Easy Plan extends Teamcenter with dedicated manufacturing planning objects for MBOMs, process structures, resources, and work instructions. Planning activities are performed directly on managed product data, eliminating the need to export, copy, or recreate information outside the PLM environment.
Teamcenter Easy Plan is delivered either as an on-premise solution or as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering through Teamcenter X.
In an on-premise delivery, Easy Plan runs in the organization’s own IT environment, with system administration, upgrades, and security managed internally.
In a SaaS delivery through Teamcenter X, Easy Plan runs in a Siemens-managed cloud environment, where infrastructure and system updates are handled as part of the service. allowing organizations to use Easy Plan without maintaining the underlying systems.
MBOMs, BOPs, BOEs, and work instructions are stored as managed structures in Teamcenter with lifecycle states, revisions, and access control. All downstream planning artifacts reference the same governed objects rather than disconnected files.
Manufacturing planning is too complex and fast-changing to be managed with spreadsheets and documents. These tools often cause mistakes, inefficiencies, and delays, leading to higher costs and lower quality.
Solutions like Easy Plan are designed for this work. Easy Plan keep all planning data up to date and consistent, allows you to work in multi-user environment, provides visualization and validation and reduce errors.[AC1]
MPP is a rich client solution that has been around for many years, focused on detailed, operation-level process planning. Teamcenter Easy Plan is a modern, role- and task-based web solution that addresses specific industry scenarios, enabling MBOM/BOP management, work instruction creation, and process validation. All new planning capabilities will be delivered through Easy Plan.
Rich Client is a full-featured desktop application providing complete access to Teamcenter, including advanced process planning and administration. Active Workspace is a web-based, role- and task-focused interface optimized for planners, engineers, and shopfloor operators to manage MBOMs, BOPs, and work instructions without the desktop client.
No. Beyond the client, Easy Plan provides a modern web-based user experience and a role- and task-based approach, where each user focuses on specific tasks and outcomes. This structure enables smoother workflows, better process visibility, and improved planning efficiency. MPP continues to support operation-level planning but will not receive these new capabilities.
MPP will continue to receive maintenance and critical fixes, but new planning capabilities will only be available through Teamcenter Easy Plan.
No. MPP will remain available for users relying on existing operation-level process planning. Teamcenter Easy Plan complements MPP with modern web-based planning and is the platform for all new capabilities.
Choosing between Manufacturing Process Planner (MPP) and Easy Plan depends on your organization's specific requirements.
Easy Plan offers a modern, clean interface designed for role-based and task-oriented process planning. Its intuitive design is ideal for the daily activities of manufacturing and industrial engineers across various sectors. It focuses on making common tasks straightforward and accessible through a web browser, which helps engineers complete their planning work without unnecessary complexity.
MPP is more of a "Swiss Army knife" for power users and IT-centric workflows, whereas it provides a comprehensive, high-capacity toolset for complex data management and extensive system customization. While it is more technically demanding, it offers the depth required for managing intricate data structures and specialized technical configurations that go beyond standard planning.
Teamcenter Easy Plan reuses EBOM items as managed manufacturing part objects and enables planners to restructure them into MBOMs that reflect assembly sequence, installation logic, and part consumption, while maintaining persistent traceability to the engineering definition.
Easy Plan compares EBOM and MBOM at the structure and attribute level, highlighting missing, added, and modified content, including BOM recipes, manufacturing alignment, substitutes, weld points and manufacturing representations.
When engineering revisions are released, Easy Plan automatically identifies which manufacturing parts are affected, so only those areas of the MBOM need updating. A Change Summary Panel clearly shows EBOM–MBOM differences. Support for Engineering Change Notices (ECNs) and Manufacturing Change Notices (MCNs) helps manage both engineering and manufacturing changes with full traceability, even when changes occur late.
Easy Plan provides structure- and attribute-level comparison between EBOM and MBOM views, highlighting missing, added, or modified content so planners can reconcile differences without breaking engineering associations or creating cloned datasets.
When engineering revisions are released, Easy Plan identifies impacted manufacturing parts through associative relationships, enabling targeted MBOM updates instead of full structure rebuilds—critical in environments with late or frequent design changes.
Teamcenter Easy Plan replaces static MBOM spreadsheets with connected, change-aware manufacturing structures that stay synchronized with engineering and downstream planning, reducing manual reconciliation and late-stage manufacturing surprises.
In Teamcenter Easy Plan, a Bill of Process is defined by creating and sequencing manufacturing processes and operations that reflect the actual assembly or part manufacturing flow. These processes are directly linked to the MBOM.
BOPs can include hierarchical operations, parallel activities, alternate flows, and operation sequencing, allowing planners to model realistic shopfloor execution rather than linear, document-based steps.
Teamcenter Easy Plan highlights impacted operations through associative links, allowing planners to assess process impact and update only affected areas instead of reworking the entire process plan.
Line balancing occurs downstream of Teamcenter Easy Plan as part of manufacturing process validation and optimization. Easy Plan defines the authoritative manufacturing plan—capturing process structure and resource intent—which is then consumed by connected simulation tools to analyse workload distribution, cycle times, and resource utilization. This separation ensures planning definition and dynamic validation remain aligned but purpose-specific.
Teamcenter Easy Plan structures the Bill of Process with clearly defined operations, precedence relationships, and logical sequencing, while the Bill of Equipment associates production-intent resources to each operation. This connected definition provides simulation tools with a consistent, interpretable dataset to apply cycle times, takt assumptions, and capacity constraints during line balancing and time-based analysis, without recreating or reinterpreting the manufacturing plan.
Teamcenter Easy Plan manages planning changes using Manufacturing Change Notices (MCNs). MCNs control, track, and approve updates to the MBOM, BOP, and BOE, making change impacts visible before they are applied. This ensures line balancing and time analysis are performed using controlled and up-to-date manufacturing planning data, reducing the risk of validating outdated scenarios.
Teamcenter Easy Plan allows manufacturing planners to create Process Simulate studies directly within the planning context and open them in Process Simulate from Easy Plan. Simulation engineers perform 3D validation and refinement in Process Simulate, with all updates saved back to Teamcenter. The validated studies are then reflected in Easy Plan, ensuring planners and simulation engineers work from the same authoritative data without duplication.
Yes. Easy Plan allows planners to define a target cycle or TAKT time and compare planned operation and station workloads against it during line balancing.
TAKT time is used as a planning reference to evaluate whether process sequences and station workloads can meet required production rates, helping identify imbalances early in the planning phase.
Easy Plan helps planners see the total planned workload at each station by aggregating operation times and sequences. This makes it easy to identify overloaded or underutilized stations early and adjust process assignments before production is finalized.
The Bill of Equipment in Teamcenter Easy Plan defines the production equipment, tools, fixtures, and resources required to execute the manufacturing process. It captures equipment intent in direct context of the manufacturing plan, ensuring resource definitions are aligned with how the product is built.
Because BOE is authored within the same PLM environment as MBOM and BOP, changes to product structure or process definitions can be assessed and reflected in equipment assignments through controlled change management. This maintains consistency across the manufacturing plan as designs evolve.
Teamcenter Easy Plan enables reuse of standardized equipment, tooling, and resource definitions across multiple manufacturing plans or programs. This supports consistency in planning, reduces redundant effort, and improves maintainability of equipment-related data.
Work instructions give shopfloor operators clear, step-by-step guidance to carry out manufacturing operations. They are created from the Bill of Process and connected to the assigned machines, tools, and resources in the Bill of Equipment, so execution on the shopfloor matches what was planned.
Yes. Easy Plan allows multiple variants of operations or resource assignments to be captured. Work Instructions can reflect these alternatives, enabling operators to follow the correct steps based on the specific production scenario.
Yes. Work instructions can be translated into multiple languages to support global production. Teamcenter Easy Plan’s AI-based work instruction translator translates into required language ensuring consistent, accurate instructions across different regions.
Easy Plan is fully embedded within Teamcenter, leveraging PLM-managed MBOM, BOP, and BOE data. This integration ensures that manufacturing plans are consistent with approved product designs, change-controlled, and traceable throughout the product lifecycle.
Yes. Teamcenter Easy Plan connects with CAM software through the Teamcenter PLM backbone. Manufacturing process plans can be linked with CAM data, such as NC programs and tooling, supporting a connected digital thread from planning to CAM programming and execution.
Yes. Teamcenter Easy Plan integrates with Tecnomatix solutions through the Teamcenter backbone. Process planning data in Easy Plan can be used in Tecnomatix simulation studies such as Process Simulate and Plant Simulation for 3D process validation, production flow analysis, and capacity planning. In addition, Process Simulate studies can be opened directly from Easy Plan via the Study Manager, supporting a connected digital thread from planning to simulation.
Roles such as manufacturing planner, simulation engineer, or production manager can be assigned with defined permissions. Role-based access ensures that users can view or modify only the data relevant to their responsibilities, maintaining data integrity and security.
Yes. Easy Plan supports centralized planning with distributed access across multiple sites. This allows global teams to collaborate on manufacturing plans, ensuring consistent processes, equipment assignments, and work instructions, while respecting local operational constraints.
Easy Plan alignment with the Teamcenter six-month release cycle ensures that major enhancements are delivered through standard Teamcenter updates. Updates to templates, operation libraries, equipment definitions, and integrations are managed through Teamcenter change management, with versioning and controlled propagation to downstream systems.
Yes. You can subscribe to a 30-day free trial to get hands-on experience with the software and explore its planning and validation capabilities.
I want to learn more about Teamcenter Easy Plan?
Explore a curated set of resources to understand Easy Plan in depth:
Teamcenter Easy Plan is used across industries such as automotive, aerospace, industrial machinery, engineer-to-order (ETO), and build-to-order (BTO) to streamline role-based manufacturing planning, process validation, and shopfloor readiness. It supports planners, manufacturing engineers, industrial engineers, design engineers, simulation engineers, and shopfloor operators.
Examples of Easy Plan in action: