Advance Planning And Scheduling

India’s prospects for becoming a major global producer are brighter than ever, and the ongoing trends are expected to present an immense amount of opportunities to domestic suppliers. In order to tap this opportunity and align with these trends, it becomes imperative for suppliers to develop an ability to predict customer demand and plan ahead for product design and production processes.

Over time, best practices and management methods for manufacturing and supply chain have evolved. More specifically, concepts like lean manufacturing and agile manufacturing have gained popularity on grounds of production process optimization, flexibility, and customer focus. While this has led to drastic improvements in stand-alone processes, value chain management, and the overall process has become very complex. To address such issues, the following areas should be prioritized

Capacity management, market intelligence, and production scheduling should be leveraged to manage production on a day-to-day basis.
Holistic production scheduling solutions should be preferred over disconnected and manually updated spreadsheets.
Manufacturing and Supply Chain processes encompassing customer orders, production scheduling and manufacturing execution should be closed looped.

The impressive benefits of adding Siemens APS systems include

Up to 30% reduction in setup time
Up to 60% reduction in planning time
Up to 20% increase in productivity
Up to 30% reduction of production cycle length
Up to 80% decrease in materials inventory/stock
Up to 2/3 reduction in work in progress
Reduction of backlog
Improved quality of material and information flow between departments
Improved visibility and the ability to react to unexpected events
Improved delivery performance and customer satisfaction
More effective skilled employee scheduling, reduction in overtime costs
Fast implementation time
Fast ROI, often in weeks

How Preactor APS Works

SIMATIC IT Preactor is a suite of production planning and scheduling products for small, medium and large companies. SIMATIC IT Preactor APS uses advanced math to analyze and calculate achievable production schedules, taking into account a range of constraints and your business rules allowing the planner to generate and evaluate multiple possible scenarios.

Manufacturers cannot react quickly and intelligently to changes without planning & scheduling tools. The time it takes to generate a schedule using spreadsheets can take hours or even days and it can be difficult to maintain. If there is an unexpected change, it is not easy to generate a new schedule.

SIMATIC IT Preactor Advance Planning and Scheduling can be installed straight out of the box, can be customized and configured where necessary, without disturbing the core Preactor code. It can be used standalone to manage planning and scheduling, and is also designed for integration with other software such as ERP, MES, Data collection, Forecasting, Demand Planning and OEE applications.

SIMATIC IT Preactor Advance Scheduling is a scheduling tool primarily for manufacturers who need to schedule machines, production lines and resources, but Preactor is also used in services and logistics. With many case studies, it has been proven successful across most industry sectors including Aerospace and Automotive, Engineering, Food and Beverage, Consumer Goods and many more.

SIMATIC IT Preactor Advance Planning is an essential planning tool for companies who want to enhance competitiveness, increase profits and improve customer service. Effective purchasing of economic quantities of raw materials and timely use of this raw material is key to reducing one of the greatest production problems; unnecessary high stock levels of both finished product and raw materials; and the possibility of this stock reaching its sell-by date before being consumed.

Features of Advance Planning and Scheduling

Order at a Time’ scheduling
In software table and field renaming
In software grid view and dialog design
Mid batch update (display only)
Attribute based simple setup times
Flexible Order Routing
File Based Export
File Based Import
Customizable spare fields
Multi-constraint scheduling (primary, secondary and materials)
Material consumption at order level
FIFO material linking rule
ADO .Net Data Source Import
Preactor APS Workflow tool (PESP) with Custom Actions to run external code
Transfer batching and Slack Times
Order Enquiry
Mid batch update with recalculation
Full Sequence dependent attribute based setup times
A set of standard advanced planning rules
Preactor APS workflow (PESP) Scheduling actions for multi-pass rules
Material consumption and production at operation level
Custom material linking rules
Material Explorer for material data visualization
Advanced resource constraints to model complex concurrent resource usage
Advanced operation constraints for complex inter-operation relationships
Exclude invalid resources based on attribute
Preactor APS Object API for data manipulation
Open Planning Board API for custom scheduling rules
Database schema and menu structure editing
All Preactor scheduling features and classifications

Preactor APS Users

Preactor Advance Planning and Scheduling is used by Aerospace & Defense companies who make parts and assemblies as well as the final aircraft, typically categorized by small batch sizes but very complex routing and material requirements.

Preactor APS is used right across the Automotive and Transportation sector from parts suppliers to OEM final assembly of the finished product.

Preactor Advance Planning and Scheduling is used throughout the Chemicals, Oil and Gas supply chain including the manufacture of equipment for the exploration and extraction process, transport logistics, and the production of final end products.

Preactor APS is widely used in the Electrical Equipment and Electronics sector. It ranges from mass production of PCBs through to small batch simple and complex assemblies.

The Food & Beverage Industry faces unique demands. Preactor APS is very commonly used in the food sector for a wide range of applications from long term strategic planning, medium term tactical planning and detailed scheduling.

Preactor Advance Planning Scheduling is used by companies in the Glass, Ceramics and other materials sectors, from quarried aggregates to magnetic tapes.

In the Machinery and Equipment industries, Preactor APS can generate a schedule based on deep bills of material whereby parts, sub-assemblies and final assemblies are often generated to order.

Preactor APS is used widely in the metal processing and fabrication sectors from foundries to continuous casting of billets, from wire making to forging.

Preactor APS is used widely in the Packaging sector for contract packaging and printing to boxes, cartons and healthcare product packaging.

Preactor Advance Planning and Scheduling is used widely in the Pulp and Paper sectors. Printers can have various capabilities in terms of colors and alternative routes for orders to take.

Preactor Advance Planning and Scheduling is used by many companies in the Pharmaceuticals, Life Sciences and Cosmetics sectors both during development of new products and in planning and scheduling production.

Preactor APS is used in Precision Engineering, manufacturing complex tools with multiple parts, where a large portion of the overall manufacture is assembly.

In the Rubber & Plastics industries, Preactor APS optimizes sequence of batches onto machines based on resin type, color and other attributes by reducing changeover time.

Preactor APS is used by many companies in the Textiles sector, from manufacturers of apparel and shoes to automotive fabrics.

Preactor Advance Planning and Scheduling is used by companies in the Transportation, Logistics and Services sectors, from shipping and distribution centers to passenger management.

Preactor APS has been implemented widely in the furniture and wood processing sectors for both straight forward and complex processes of assembly.