Abstract
The project business is characterized by customer individual one-off production. Hence, companies have to adapt to recurring novel planning tasks. However, during the initiation phase only few information is available leading to decision-making using the rule of thumb instead of valid planning data. This paper introduces a digital assistance system for production program planning at early project stages based on material flow simulation. Therefore, product data is generated utilizing past orders in connection with a similarity assessment, the current machine occupancy is fed into the system via a real-time capable data interface and consequently target dates are simulatively evaluated.