A systematic approach for generating a work release plan that considers both demand and supply variables. The approach comprises prioritizing scheduled lots in order of their critical ratios, estimating an initial daily release quota for the scheduled lots based on both pull and push requirements, and determining detailed capacity constraints for the manufacturing system. The approach further comprises testing whether the initial daily release quota complies with the detailed capacity constraints, and, if the detailed capacity constraints are violated, rearranging the lots in the initial daily release quota so that the detailed capacity constraints are met.