Manufacturing planning data for a production process that is managed by a manufacturing execution system is updated by way of a plurality of steps, which include: Gathering data from a PLC level relevant to the manufacturing planning data and the execution of the production process; mapping the gathered data with the current manufacturing planning data in order to determine suggested changes between the gathered data and the current manufacturing planning data; applying a predetermined update scenario for the manufacturing planning data depending on the suggested changes to update the manufacturing planning data; and adapting the current production process and optionally following production processes according to the updated manufacturing planning data. The reliability of the so-called standard data used in production planning processes is thus dramatically improved. Furthermore, since trends on possible deviations from the standard data can be recognized in real-time, it is now possible to dynamically update the standard data as soon as accompanying quality improvement programs reach those performance results which are significant for the current production plan based on the production planning data.