Detailed scheduling, the production navigation system

When was the last time you were on the road in a foreign city or on holiday without a navigation system? A scenario that is probably many years in the past and would be unimaginable today! So why don’t you navigate along a predefined route to a defined destination in your production facility?

Even if things rarely go exactly according to plan in practice – be it an unforeseen traffic jam or a production order that is completed late – you still have a clear goal in mind that you can pursue.

In today’s industrial landscape, planning systems have become indispensable for managing and controlling production and related processes such as logistics, as well as responding to unforeseen events. The need to optimise the use of resources has never been greater, especially given the scarcity of human, plant and machine resources. A powerful planning system such as cronetwork APS incorporates all of these factors into the planning and thus contributes to the sustainable success of the company. You always remain in control of the situation and steer your production to the desired goal with extensive planning logic and AI algorithms.

Efficient production starts with well thought-out planning that follows the approaches of lean manufacturing. After all, what use are the best lean approaches on the shop floor if potential efficiency gains are wasted at the planning stage? Why not think about minimising set-up, waiting and idle times, superfluous WIP and the best possible use of resources at this early stage? By optimising production processes and minimising waste, efficiency is increased and costs are reduced. Efficient planning lays the foundation for successful lean manufacturing and contributes to the continuous improvement of shop floor processes. A capable planning system such as cronetwork APS supports this and prevents waste from occurring in the first place.

For this purpose, the planning system must have the following properties:

Planning systems such as cronetwork APS are indispensable for ensuring the optimum use of production resources on the basis of actual availability, technological criteria, employee qualifications and dynamic consideration and minimisation of set-up situations. In times of scarce resources, a well thought-out system enables precise allocation and utilisation of machines, employees and production resources. It helps to identify and avoid bottlenecks at an early stage, thereby minimising downtimes and maximising production capacity.

In order to react better to constantly changing conditions and draw the right conclusions, it is essential to be able to carry out simulations within the planning system. In these planning scenarios, the optimum production route is to be found with the aid of different planning strategies, changed availabilities, changed order backlogs, etc. As soon as a valid decision basis is available, this can be made on the basis of transparent key figures and the desired planning can be transferred to production and neighbouring systems such as logistics at the touch of a button.

Another key factor of an effective planning system is the comprehensive consideration of the material situation. Material bottlenecks in particular can lead to considerable delays in production. What use is a planning screen that cannot be processed due to a lack of material? This is where planning systems such as cronetwork APS+ can help by including the physical and MRP material supply in the analysis and presenting dependencies clearly and transparently.

Important questions that planning tools must therefore answer are:

• Is my material supply physically covered?
• When are primary materials/semi-finished products from my own production available?
• When will my orders be received?

Thanks to its clear view of the current material situation, Cronetwork APS+ can provide well-founded answers. It takes into account physical and MRP material stocks and builds corresponding order networks across several scheduling levels, which are planned without conflict. By considering holistic order networks, transparency and efficiency (keyword: WIP reduction) are significantly increased. This approach makes it possible to react to material bottlenecks at an early stage and take the right measures should disruptions occur in the supply chain.

The use of AI already offers added value in many different areas of life. So why not in detailed production planning too! Planning heuristics deliver very good results, as long as they take into account the essential planning criteria – as already explained – and have a correspondingly in-depth planning logic. However, you are very likely to achieve a local optimum, which you need to escape from in order to get the best out of your production.

This is where AI-supported planning systems can play to their strengths in order to further optimise and systematically revise previously almost impossible combinations in planning. These data volumes and possible combinations are almost impossible for a human to keep track of and make it impossible to recognise patterns that contribute to the further optimisation of the planning images. AI-supported planning systems are highly intelligent, tireless assistance systems that are able to do this for us and therefore represent an invaluable asset for a constantly changing market environment and the flexibility and adaptability that this requires.

AI-supported planning systems are an indispensable component of lean manufacturing in order to drive forward the efficient management and control of production and the associated processes. The cronetwork APS Optimzer is a practical tool that uses artificial intelligence to further improve and optimise planning results in order to get the best out of production. In this way, the cronetwork APS Optimizer helps companies to succeed in a highly competitive environment.