Typical products
- HDPE pressure pipe
- PVC water and sewer pipe
- Electrical conduit
- Gas distribution pipe
- Irrigation pipe
- Specialty and multilayer pipe
Pipe extrusion scheduling
Constraint-aware production scheduling for pipe extrusion
Turn HDPE and PVC pipe orders into a line-feasible schedule that uses the lines you approve for each product, pounds per hour by line, the changeover minutes you enter for die, diameter, and resin changes, and delivery dates.
How production scheduling software works
30 days free · No credit card required · No automatic charge
Who this is for
Built for the people accountable for the next run
Production managers balancing pressure pipe, conduit, and specialty runs across a mixed line fleet.
Schedulers replacing a workbook or whiteboard that only one person fully understands.
Plant managers and owners who need a reliable view of delivery risk without launching an ERP project.
Products and setup
Confirm the fit with the production facts you already know
What to gather for a useful trial
- Active SKUs with diameter, SDR, resin, and quantity unit
- Eligible line and demonstrated rate for each SKU
- Shift calendars and planned downtime by line
- Product-to-product changeover minutes
- Open orders with quantities and due dates
These are fit examples, not customer claims. RunMark does not infer these constraints; your team supplies the line, product, rate, calendar, and changeover data used by the schedule.
Real scheduling constraints
Open hours are not the same as usable capacity
Diameter and SDR capability
A 2-inch conduit order and an 18-inch SDR 11 pressure-pipe order cannot be treated as interchangeable hours. Match each SKU to lines with the right extruder, downstream sizing, cooling, haul-off, and cut or coil capability.
Resin and color sequence
Switching HDPE grades, PVC compounds, or colors takes purge and setup time that depends on what ran before. Enter those minutes for each product pair on a line and RunMark reserves them before the run; it does not know about grades, colors, or regrind on its own.
Variable pounds per hour
Store realistic throughput by line and product instead of one plant-wide rate. Output changes with diameter, wall section, formulation, cooling limits, and quality requirements.
Die, tooling, and downstream changes
Reserve the setup window for die and pin changes, calibration or sizing changes, printer setup, and downstream adjustments before promising the next run.
Order-to-schedule example
From demand to a traceable production run
- 1 · Capture the order
Order: 120,000 ft of 6-inch HDPE SDR 11 pressure pipe, natural PE4710, due Friday. The item master carries weight per foot so footage can be planned against a pounds/hour line rate.
- 2 · Build the plan
RunMark filters to the lines approved for 6-inch SDR 11, applies the selected line’s throughput, places the die/tooling change ahead of the run, and shows the calculated start and finish against the due date.
- 3 · Release and label
The floor receives one production record with line, timing, quantity, and run identity. Unit or bundle labels are generated from that same record so schedule and traceability data are not retyped.
One connected workflow
The production facts stay attached to the run
Line capability
Set which pipe products each line can run and the speed for each. Make each diameter, SDR, or resin variant its own product when line fit or speed differs.
Throughput
Use line- and SKU-specific output rates in pounds/hour or a consistently converted production quantity.
Changeovers
Enter setup minutes for each product-to-product switch on a line—resin, color, SDR, diameter, die, or downstream changes. The optimizer reserves that time before each run.
Due dates
See whether calculated run timing supports the customer promise before the order reaches the floor.
Traceability
Generate labels carrying product, line, run, production date, order reference, and unit sequence from the scheduled run.
Spreadsheet scheduling compared
Replace fragile cells with shared production context
| Spreadsheet workflow | RunMark workflow |
|---|---|
| Line eligibility lives in notes, color coding, or the scheduler’s memory. | Line/SKU capability is explicit and reusable. |
| Run duration is manually recalculated when footage, weight, or rate changes. | Timing follows the selected line’s configured throughput. |
| Labels are recreated in another template after scheduling. | Labels start from the same persisted production run. |
| Rush orders overwrite cells and hide the reason for a delivery move. | The live schedule keeps order, line, timing, and status together. |
Relevant RunMark capabilities
Enough structure for the floor, without ERP overhead
- Excel order import
- Line-to-SKU capability rules
- Line-specific production rates
- Visual production schedule
- Order and run status
- PDF traceability labels
- Team workspace
Start with one real week of production
Start with the pipe products, lines, and active orders you already maintain. RunMark is a focused scheduling and traceability workspace—not an ERP implementation—and the trial does not require a credit card.
Pricing is one plan at $249/month or $2,490/year, with unlimited lines, orders, and SKUs, after a 30-day free trial.
Frequently asked questions
Practical questions from extrusion teams
Can RunMark schedule both HDPE and PVC pipe?
Yes. Set up HDPE and PVC pipe as separate products, each with its own eligible lines, production rates, and changeover minutes to and from other products. RunMark schedules from those settings; it does not read the resin type itself.
Can I plan in footage when my line rate is pounds per hour?
Keep a consistent production quantity for scheduling and use the product’s weight-per-foot relationship when converting. The public capacity calculator also requires demand and throughput to use the same selected unit.
Does RunMark optimize die-change sequencing automatically?
Partly. RunMark’s optimizer uses each line’s product-to-product changeover times: it reserves the setup before each run, never places two runs closer together than their changeover allows, and weighs changeover time against due dates when choosing slots. If the optimizer is unavailable, a simpler fallback scheduler drafts the schedule instead; the draft review shows which one produced it. The fallback also reserves your changeover minutes before and after every run it places, but it places orders one at a time in due-date order instead of weighing them all together. Neither searches for the sequence with the least total changeover across the week, and both only know the changeover minutes you enter for each product pair (30 minutes if a pair is left blank)—not resin, SDR, or die attributes on their own.
What can appear on a pipe traceability label?
Available label fields include product, production date, line, run number, unit number, order reference, part number, and company identity.
Do we need to replace our accounting or ERP system?
No. RunMark is designed as a focused production scheduling and traceability layer and can start from direct entry or Excel order imports.
How long is the free trial?
The trial provides 30 days of access with no credit card and no automatic charge.