Production planning and control ensures resource efficiency and delivery reliability
FIT-CapaTool
Easy Control and Coordination of all Manufacturing Resources
Globalisation and general economic, as well as ecological conditions, are posing ever-greater challenges to the manufacturing industry. Customer orientation in manufacturing companies is thus becoming increasingly important. Related to this is a greater diversity and complexity of products, which also affects the production process accordingly. Smaller batch sizes have to be processed even more effectively with existing resources. Short scheduled delivery dates and absolute adherence to deadlines are an absolute MUST! Unfortunately, many planners or dispatchers cannot access up-to-date information from the manufacturing process. The actual task of manufacturing control (defining capacities, manufacturing progress, monitoring compliance with deadlines, balanced utilisation of resources) can therefore only be approached with a great deal of experience based on a “gut feeling”.
Beyond the possibilities of a PPS system, the FIT-CapaTool can help to plan the utilisation of machines with manufacturing orders, maintain an overview of the required employees and determine delivery dates. An up-to-date mapping of production as well as transparency is created in the planning process from the current feedback from manufacturing using plant data acquisition or the order feedback in order to be able to make well-founded decisions. Moreover, the electronic planning board is an interactive tool in order to be able to also intervene manually in the planning situation.
Manufacturing Planning and Control
The FIT-CapaTool module provides the possibility for detailed manufacturing control and planning of the manufacturing orders based on capacities and resources (manpower/machines/workplaces). By using an electronic planning board, the current utilisation and planning of the manufacturing orders as well as the personnel situation can be visualised and rescheduling undertaken.
Advantages
- Precise manufacturing control based on online data regarding current resources (human/machine/workstation).
- Dynamic illustration of manufacturing, order and project situations online
- Integrated in FIT-WebMES
- Optimisation of added value and safeguarding of supply reliability
- Increased productivity
FIT-CapaTool-Author
Author licence for the production control for configuration/administration and the planners who must actively intervene in the planning process to make changes or to accommodate personnel availability. Visualisation and planning of orders including order processes, machines, availability and capacities. Each named user who wishes to actively plan requires a FIT-CapaTool-Author licence.
FIT-CapaTool-Consumer
Visualisation licence for employees who only wish to or are only permitted to view the planning and planning board and are not actively involved in the planning. The module is intended to provide information to all employees not active in planning but who need to know the current status of production and the individual orders. Every named user requires a FIT-CapaTool-Consumer licence.
Opcenter APS – Advanced Planning and Scheduling
The current trends in manufacturing or production require costs to be reduced through reduced inventories. At the same time, it is necessary to react to shorter lead times in order to meet customer requirements.
This requires optimized manufacturing and production processes by reducing or eliminating value-added activities such as set-up or waiting times. By identifying potential conflicts, measures can be taken to match demand and capacity.
The Opcenter APS product family offers a perfected planning and scheduling solution. It is used by small and medium-sized companies as well as by large corporations to meet their customers’ needs and to survive in the increasingly global competition.
Today, Opcenter helps more than 3,500 companies to react to unexpected events and changes. The powerful scheduling mechanism allows maintenance and production plans to be adapted to new circumstances in just a few minutes.
Thanks to the flexible data model and planning logic, Opcenter products can be adapted to all planning and scheduling requirements of companies. It is possible to create individual rules to create production/production sequences. The installation of event-driven communication scripts enables cross-site integration with other systems.
Planning and Scheduling
Opcenter supports both the so-called “planning” and the so-called “scheduling”. The different terms, which are not always easy to separate in German, can best be compared in the overview below.
Rough Planning (Planning)
The rough planning takes into account forecasts and long-term orders to check the feasibility and determine the general direction.
It dynamically defines the target stock level to meet future demand.
Load distribution over several resources taking into account e.g. storage time, shelf life, etc.
Supports key production capacity decisions:
- Expansion of the workforce
- Expansion of resource capacities
- Expansion of the production facilities
The result of rough-cut planning is a master production plan that proposes planned orders for the ERP system to meet the requirements.
Detailed Planning (Scheduling)
The detailed planning schedules all work steps to specify sequences and work lists. Primary and secondary constraints can be modelled in detail to achieve the most accurate representation of the real situation. Scheduling can be carried out according to prepared optimization strategies (minimum setup times, high delivery reliability, minimum current stock, …) or can be configured application-specific. It predicts the effects of changes; for interruptions, failures, rejects, etc. and can take into account the current production efficiency.
In case of planning conflicts you have an effective decision support for:
- Overtime
- Order priorities
- Batch splitting
- Postponed delivery time
- Order commitments (CTP/ATP)
Accurate models deliver feasible plans
As an extension to classical planning in the ERP system, the boundary conditions are modelled in Opcenter to the desired level of detail. This enables the detailed planning department to create plans that are actually feasible, taking all constraints into account. In addition to the main resources, operating resources, staffing levels, qualifications, space requirements, energy consumption, etc. can be modelled as additional conditions.
Shift and resource calendar
All resources and constraints can be quantified using calendars. Thus, time dependencies of availability, efficiency, workload, etc. can be maintained or taken over from external sources.
Integration into existing system landscapes
Due to the open, flexible system structure, Opcenter can be used at various levels of the planning process. Easily configurable interfaces enable interaction with company-wide ERP systems, subordinate MES or ODA systems as well as several Opcenter instances. Of course, Opcenter can also be used completely independently.
Potential for improvement through Opcenter
By using Opcenter, improvements can be achieved in various areas. The following improvements have been highlighted by Opcenter users from various projects:
Minimized effort for planning, fast results
- Short planning cycles – what-if simulations become possible
- Short-term planning/rescheduling of special orders – flexibility, but structured
- Fast reaction to unplanned events (sick leave, production downtime, delivery delays, …)
- Playing through cost optimizations (e.g. saving of one shift, etc.)
Provision of a reliable, feasible, optimized plan
- Minimization of false call-offs in the material flow – effective logistics
- Minimization of the stock in circulation – space savin
- Minimization of throughput time – Lower capital commitment
- Precise prediction of delivery dates – Increased customer satisfaction
- Optimal occupancy of the plants – Increase in productivity
- Optimal placement of service activities – improvement of capacity utilization
Supplies basic data for process optimization
- Identification of systematic capacity reserves, bottlenecks, etc.
- Continuous improvement of the planning mode
- Continuous improvement of master data quality in the ERP system
User-friendly, modern IT tool
- Reduction of paper and Excel-based interim solutions
- Flexible use for different planning tasks
- Short training period