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industrial IT > Production Planning APS

Under the Opcenter brand, SIEMENS Digital Industries Software has created the most extensive, unique Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) solution for production processes digitization (Industry 4.0), including the Opcenter Advanced Planning and Scheduling (Opcenter APS) consists of 2 products:

Opcenter Planning supporting long-term planning and
Opcenter Scheduling supporting mid- & short-term production operations scheduling.

ASKOM as the only certified SIEMENS partner in Poland offers a full portfolio of SIEMENS Opcenter MOM software, including the integrated Opcenter APS system.

Global competition

The current trends in manufacturing are aimed at lowering inventory levels to reduce costs, while still being able to respond to shorter lead times and thereby satisfy customer demand. This forces companies to find ways to optimize production operations by reducing or eliminating nonvalue-added activities such as setup or waiting time. Highlighting potential problems allows action to be taken to balance demand and capacity.

Opcenter APS products have been developed to meet this need. They are used by small and mid-size companies and large corporations to help meet demands made by their customers and beat the increasingly global competition.

Due to the flexible data model and scheduling logic, Opcenter APS products can be set up to meet a company’s planning and scheduling needs no matter what they are.

What about my existing software?

Opcenter APS products are designed to work alongside and facilitate, rather than replace, existing systems. They can be tightly integrated with enterprise resource planning (ERP), accounting and forecasting software, spreadsheets, manufacturing execution system (MES) and automation systems (SCADA).

Whether generating production plans that detail the task sequences for each resource by applying rules to load orders or producing long-term capacity plans, the products in the Opcenter APS range provide the interactive drag and-drop environment that modern businesses need in order to react efficiently to unexpected changes in demand and capacity and thereby maximize on-time deliveries.

How does Opcenter APS help lean initiatives?

Lean manufacturing is currently one of the industry buzzwords, and quite rightly so. Most companies are under pressure to reduce costs while producing more and achieve shorter delivery times. All this has to be accomplished without an accurate indication of future demand and with lower inventories. Lean manufacturing represents a cultural change at all levels of a company. Its prime objective is to eliminate waste in whatever form it takes. Independent international surveys, measuring on-time delivery performances and the improvement of throughput times, have proven that the most successful companies are those using lean scheduling software, such as Opcenter APS. By connecting such systems to their ERP and shop floor data collection, these companies are able to monitor the state of execution against plan.

Visibility is key

You need to see the impact of your decisions. This cannot be achieved with more generalized tools, such as a spreadsheet. Using Opcenter APS helps you to visualize the current load, see the impact of unexpected events, ask what-if questions and compare alternatives before the decision is made.

Who uses Opcenter APS?

Many companies, ranging from small and medium-sized businesses to large corporations, employ Opcenter APS as part of their global supply chain solution. These companies are located around the world. The software’s flexibility means that it can be used by companies in almost every sector of manufacturing, services and Logistics:

Automotive and aerospace
Chemicals and pharmaceuticals
Consumer packaged goods
Electronics and electrical equipment
Food and beverages
Furniture and wood products
Glass, ceramics and basic materials
Metals and metal fabricated products
Paper and packaging
Printing and publishing
Rubber and plastics
Textiles and apparel
Tooling and precision engineering

A complete family of solutions

Opcenter APS is not a single point solution. It represents a family of products that, although based on the same
core code, have different levels of functionality and pricing so that you can select the system that satisfies both your needs and budget. Upgrading to another product as your needs change is simple and easy.

Products from the Opcenter APS range can be used for long-term strategic planning covering months and years ahead, medium-term tactical planning with a few weeks planning horizon and for detailed sequencing and scheduling.

Opcenter Scheduling - advanced scheduling

The Opcenter Scheduling (Opcenter SC) range has been redesigned to introduce functionality that was previously only available at the highest level throughout the range. All products in the Opcenter Scheduling range are interactive, multi-constraint scheduling systems. This means that the availability of resources and additional constraints, such as tooling and materials, are all taken into consideration during the scheduling process to ensure an accurate model of your environment. Orders can be scheduled quickly using intelligent built-in rules, and the planner also has the ability to manually interact with the schedule to make changes based on his or her experience or new information.

Opcenter Scheduling features a whole new level of software customization, putting the power to change the way the system looks directly into the user’s hands. This includes a new data editor grid that allows custom sorts, filters and groupings to be applied and enables the fields displayed to be selected while viewing the data. In addition, there is a powerful table and field editor tool that enables you to change the table and field names, redesign the dialogs and set the display attributes of the fields.

Opcenter APS is designed to be easily integrated with other business systems to allow the simple retrieval of any required data, be that work order information from your ERP/MRP system or updates on operation progress from an MES or Salesforce.com system. This is supported by a simple, intuitive data exchange interface and a powerful workflow tool that allows the rapid deployment of integrations. The flexibility of Opcenter APS integration tools and data setup makes it possible to implement the system entirely standalone, have it fully populated by data from other business systems or any scenario in-between. If information about product routings and BOMs is held within Opcenter APS, then it is possible to use the system for ad hoc order inquiries, allowing the planner to give accurate delivery estimates in an instant.

Opcenter Planning - advanced planning

Opcenter Planning (Opcenter PL) general features Planning can be executed in finite or infinite capacity mode and planning time periods can be days, weeks, months or a combination of all three. Parameters can be set against each item codes which allows different calculations for each item. For example, some products may be in MTS (Make-To-Stock) mode whilst others are in MTO (Make-To-Order) mode. If used together with a Opcenter Scheduling system, detailed production schedule information can be sent back to the planning system and this will override planned volume with scheduled volume. MPS can then be re-calculated using production schedule as the base for new results.

Opcenter Planning make-to-stock In the food, drink, consumer goods or similar sectors, it is quite likely that production process is in MTS (Make-To-Stock) mode, in which case the primary driver in creating the MPS will typically be forecast of future demand. Opcenter Planning imports current stock levels plus actual and forecast demand. It then considers rough cut capacity, pack forward figures, target days of stock cover, manufacturing preferences, minimum/maximum reorder quantities, re-order multiples, product shelf life, etc. to propose an accurate and achievable MPS. Production capacity can be specified as a quantity, duration or weight and using the Opcenter APS calendar system capacity can be varied over time. The capacity available then limits the production volume created in each period. Once an initial MPS has been created, the data can be displayed as both stock profile graphs and capacity usage graphs. The MPS can be changed by simply clicking and dragging a point on the stock or capacity graphs, and the production of a particular item can be moved from one planning period to another. Any changes made will be reflected in all the linked plot and grid windows. The planning BoM can also be exploded by Opcenter Planning and then the production plan for lower level items is calculated in the same way. Based on the BoM explosion and the production plan, the proposed material purchase requirements can be exported to an ERP system, Excel, etc. for action.

In a MTO environment, the stock levels of finished and/or intermediate items will not be part of the key process parameters, but there will still be the need to evaluate the effects of future demand changes on the manufacturing process. For example, for complex assemblies in the aerospace sector, each finished item may have a deep BoM (Bill of Materials) and be made up of thousands of individual components. Many of those components are manufactured in-house and they share production capacity, so there is a complex relationship between manufacturing capacity and demand. When a change in demand occurs, whether that be in terms of quantity or delivery dates, there is a need to be able to quickly assess if it is possible to meet the new requirements.
It is possible to import demand changes into Opcenter Planning and create a new ‘what if’ plan. The planning BoM will be exploded and Opcenter Planning will show if there are any capacity issues. If there are issues, an acceptable MPS can be created by working interactively.

Customization

Opcenter APS is a highly customizable capacity planning and scheduling package. Fields and data tables in its Microsoft® SQL database can be added or changed. Unique sequencing rules can be created. Event-driven communication scripts can be installed for tight integration with other systems across multiple sites. Its flexibility is unparalleled.

Both the planning and scheduling products can be configured in a number of different ways. Often, users have a single master system that communicates with one or more Opcenter APS Viewers to share schedule information. Conversely, other companies employ multiple licenses across one or more departments, units or plants, with an automatic transfer of information from one system to another.

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Opcenter Advanced Planning and Scheduling

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