Li-Ion Battery Production Scheduling at Enevate Corporation

Building a brand-new lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility from scratch presents scheduling challenges that off-the-shelf software simply cannot handle. When your production processes are being invented as you scale, your scheduling system needs to be as innovative as your products.

That is exactly the situation Enevate Corporation faced in 2015 when they began building out a greenfield manufacturing facility for their next-generation Li-ion batteries. They needed a system that combined planning, scheduling, tracking, finite capacity, advanced routings, costed BOMs, inventory management, MRP, and full lot traceability — all while being flexible enough to adapt to processes that were still being developed.

They found that solution in Resource Manager DB from User Solutions.

Read the full Enevate success story.

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The Challenge: Scheduling What Has Never Been Built Before

Enevate Corporation is a creator of next-generation lithium-ion batteries. Their technology is innovative, which means their manufacturing processes are original — not copied from existing production playbooks. This creates a unique scheduling challenge: how do you schedule production when the production process itself is still evolving?

Greenfield Complexity

A greenfield facility has no existing systems, no historical data, and no established workflows. Everything must be built from scratch. The scheduling system needed to be the foundation that everything else was built upon, not an afterthought added after processes were established.

Beyond Traditional ERP

Enevate's requirements went far beyond what traditional ERP systems offer. They needed:

• Finite capacity scheduling that respects real resource constraints
• Advanced routings for complex, multi-step battery production
• Costed bills of materials for accurate production costing
• Inventory management with location tracking
• MRP for material requirements planning
• Full lot traceability — essential for battery products where quality tracking is critical
• Dynamic flexibility to change everything as processes evolved

No single system they evaluated could deliver all of these capabilities while maintaining the flexibility to adapt to constantly changing processes.

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The Solution: Resource Manager DB's Unique Flexibility

Scott Bennett, Supply Chain Manager for Enevate, led the search for a scheduling solution. His team evaluated multiple options before settling on Resource Manager DB.

"We found that the User Solutions team and the Resource Manager-DB product provided this unique combination we demanded without sacrificing flexibility — all at a palatable price point," Scott explained.

Dynamic Supply Chain Reconfiguration

Because Enevate was implementing brand-new, original processes, they needed the ability to reconfigure their supply chain dynamically. Resource Manager DB delivered this through its flexible format for combining workcenters, products, and sub-assemblies.

Scott described the value: "Due to our implementing brand new, original processes to build our innovative batteries, we required dynamic supply chain reconfiguration capability. We found Resource Manager-DB's flexible format vital when combining workcenters, products, and sub-assemblies, allowing us to run a wide variety of 'what-if' scenarios."

What-If Scenario Analysis

The ability to model different production configurations quickly was essential for Enevate's evolving processes. Resource Manager DB enabled them to build models directly in minutes or import different scenarios, leveraging Excel to hold different data sets. This what-if analysis capability meant the team could evaluate process changes before committing to them on the production floor.

Deep Sub-Assembly Structures

Battery manufacturing involves complex, multi-level assembly processes. Enevate's products required 10-level deep sub-assembly structures — a level of BOM complexity that many scheduling systems cannot handle efficiently. Resource Manager DB supported this depth while maintaining scheduling speed.

Lot Management and Traceability

For battery manufacturing, lot traceability is not optional. Quality issues must be traceable back through every component and process step. User Solutions adapted their lot management capability for Enevate, including traceability, pick lists, inventory valuation by location by lot, and combined workcenter and product attributes.

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Continuous Discovery of New Uses

What sets the Enevate implementation apart from typical scheduling deployments is how the team continued discovering new ways to use the system. Scott summarized: "Not only is the product inherently flexible to adapt to how we do our business, but also, as a company, User Solutions continually accommodated our particular requests into the core software."

The specific capabilities Enevate leveraged included:

• Detailed 10-level deep sub-assembly structures for complex battery BOM management
• Excel import of new configurations for rapid scenario testing
• Scheduling workcenters and products in virtually any combination for maximum flexibility
• Combined workcenter (scheduling) and product (costing) attributes in single entities
• Lot management with full traceability and pick lists
• Inventory valuation by location by lot for precise cost tracking

Each of these capabilities addressed a specific requirement of innovative battery manufacturing — and each was available without switching to a different system or bolting on third-party add-ons.

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Why This Matters for Manufacturers

The Enevate case study carries lessons that extend well beyond battery manufacturing.

Innovation Requires Flexible Scheduling

If your products or processes are innovative — meaning you cannot simply copy what your competitors do — your scheduling system must be flexible enough to model what you are actually doing, not what a software vendor assumes you should be doing. Resource Manager DB is designed around this principle of configuration over rigid structure.

Greenfield Is Not Just for Startups

Any manufacturer launching a new product line, building a new facility, or redesigning their production processes faces greenfield-like scheduling challenges. The lesson from Enevate applies: choose a scheduling system that can adapt to your process, not one that forces your process to adapt to it.

Lot Traceability Is Increasingly Non-Negotiable

Across industries — not just batteries — lot traceability requirements are growing. Whether driven by customer requirements, regulatory compliance, or quality management goals, the ability to trace every component through every process step is becoming table stakes. Having traceability built into your scheduling system eliminates the need for separate tracking systems.

Total Cost Matters

Enevate chose Resource Manager DB partly because of its "palatable price point." For innovative manufacturers investing heavily in R&D and new facilities, the scheduling system cannot consume a disproportionate share of the technology budget. The combination of comprehensive capabilities at a reasonable cost made the decision straightforward.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How does Enevate schedule lithium-ion battery production?

Enevate uses Resource Manager DB from User Solutions for planning, scheduling, and tracking battery production. The system provides finite capacity scheduling, advanced routings, costed bills of materials, inventory management, MRP, and full lot traceability — all within a single flexible platform.

Can scheduling software handle greenfield manufacturing?

Yes. Enevate selected Resource Manager DB specifically for their greenfield manufacturing facility because it provided the flexibility to model brand-new, original processes. The system adapted to their evolving workflows rather than forcing them into rigid predefined structures.

What makes battery production scheduling different from other manufacturing?

Battery production requires scheduling of non-traditional manufacturing flows, dynamic supply chain reconfiguration, deep sub-assembly structures (10+ levels), full lot traceability, and the ability to run what-if scenarios for process changes. Standard scheduling tools cannot handle this combination of requirements.

Does Resource Manager DB support lot traceability?

Yes. Resource Manager DB includes lot management with full traceability and pick lists. For Enevate, User Solutions adapted the lot management capability to include traceability, inventory valuation by location by lot, and combined workcenter and product attributes.

How flexible is Resource Manager DB for changing production processes?

Resource Manager DB is highly flexible. Enevate uses it to combine workcenters, products, and sub-assemblies in virtually any combination, run what-if scenarios by importing different data sets via Excel, and reconfigure their supply chain dynamically as their processes evolve.

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Schedule Your Innovation

Enevate proves that even the most innovative manufacturing processes can be scheduled effectively with the right software. If your production involves complex BOMs, evolving processes, or requirements that standard tools cannot handle, Resource Manager DB was built for exactly your situation.

Ready to see how it works with your data? Request a free demo and we will model your production environment to show you the possibilities.

Read the full Enevate success story and explore all scheduling success stories.