Production planning with Katana

> Cost: Freemium. Katana is free for up to 30 products (SKUs) with all features, unlimited users and the API. Beyond that you need Advantage, a custom annual contract (by quote); traceability, the shop floor app and the AI connector are listed under it.

Honest note: Rule-based manufacturing software (recipes, stock and schedule), not AI. The 60% and 29% figures are Katana-published with no starting baseline, so treat them as direction, not a promise. The story does not say how long setup took.

Prerequisites

• A Katana account (the free plan works for a pilot of up to 30 SKUs).
• Your product recipes (what goes into each item and how much), current stock counts, and supplier lead times.

Step-by-step setup

Step 1. Connect Shopify. In Katana: Integrations Marketplace → Shopify → Connect, enter the store name, Authorize, Install. Map each Shopify location to a Katana location, import products, then Activate sync. Katana pushes In stock minus Committed back to Shopify.

Step 2. Build each product as a recipe. Open Items, open the product card and add its recipe (bill of materials: every material or sub-product and the quantity) and its operations (the manufacturing steps, with production time). Break the process into steps per product, so each step knows what it uses. A sub-product with its own recipe can be an ingredient of the finished product, and Katana can create manufacturing orders for those sub-products automatically.

Step 3. Separate made-to-order from made-to-stock. For a customer order you build only on demand, go to the Sell screen, find the order, and under the Production column click + Make… then + Make to order. That creates a manufacturing order permanently linked to the sales order (numbered like SO-123/1) with the same quantity and a synced priority. Katana does not do this on its own when an order arrives, so you (or your team) click it per order. For products you build ahead, create an ordinary make-to-stock order from the Make screen; it is not tied to a sales order.

Step 4. Run the master schedule. Open Make → Schedule. Every manufacturing order sits in one list, top = highest priority. Drag an order up or down and Katana instantly re-reserves materials and recalculates production deadlines. The Ingredients column shows In stock, Expected or Not available for each order, so a shortfall is visible before you start. Click Not available to see which material is missing. This reservation by priority is what Katana calls auto-booking: nothing is tied to one order, higher-ranked orders just claim material first.

Step 5. Watch stock in real time. Use Stock for finished goods and raw materials; the Shopify sync keeps the shop in step. Reorder with the alerts in the next step.

Step 6. Set reorder levels and alerts. Open the Stock screen, filter to one location (the columns only show for a single location), click the Safety stock column for an item and type the level. Katana checks every morning at 8 AM and posts a Bell notification when calculated stock (In stock − Committed + Expected − Safety stock) reaches zero. Open it to see the affected items and use the quick buttons to create a purchase order (materials) or manufacturing order (products).

Easier: let your AI do it

Katana has an official MCP server, a secure plug that lets an AI chat like Claude or ChatGPT read and update your Katana data with your permission. Katana's pricing page lists it under Advantage.

1. The account owner has access by default. To give someone else access, open your profile → Team → pick the user → Admin tab → switch on Access to MCP.
2. In Claude, open Customize → Connectors, click +, then Add custom connector. Name it Katana, paste https://mcp.katanamrp.com (no slash at the end), click Add, then Connect and sign in to Katana. It also works with ChatGPT.
3. Ask things like "Which materials will run short for this week's manufacturing orders?" It can read, create and update records, but it can't delete anything.

What success looks like

Planning no longer depends on memory: you see missing materials before production, and Shopify never shows stock you do not have.

Common issues & fixes

• Imported stock looks wrong: run old and new systems side by side for a short time and reconcile with a stock count before you switch off the old one.
• Shopify stock looks low: Katana pushes In stock minus Committed, so open sales orders reduce what the shop shows.
• A big order still blocks small ones: check it is not ranked above them on Make → Schedule.

Optional: Maintenance

• Weekly: scan the Schedule for orders marked Not available.
• Quarterly: review safety stock levels against sales.

Copy-paste prompt

Use this with any AI chat. It helps you turn your products into the recipe list Katana needs.

I make [PRODUCT TYPE]. Help me write a recipe (bill of materials) and a list of manufacturing steps for one product: [PRODUCT NAME]. Ask me one question at a time about materials, quantities per unit, the steps in order, and minutes per step. Then output a table with columns: Material or sub-product, Quantity per unit, Unit. And a second table: Step, Minutes, Who does it. Do not guess any numbers; leave blanks I can fill.

Sources

• Case: Katana case study (leather journal maker). Credit: the maker's founder (vendor-published).
• Katana pricing
• Katana MCP overview
• Katana Help: Connect Katana to Claude (MCP)
• Katana Help: Connect Shopify to Katana
• Katana Help: Understanding product recipes (BOMs)
• Katana Help: Make-to-Order workflow
• Katana Help: Make in batch or make to order?
• Katana Help: Make screen (Schedule)
• Katana Help: Restock notifications