Advanced Planning and Scheduling Systems: Modeling and Implementation Challenges (original) (raw)
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An overview of the Advanced Planning and Scheduling Systems
Independent Journal of Management & Production, 2014
Currently, the activities of the planning and control of companies are becoming increasingly complex and the managers of this area are constantly pressured to reduce operating costs, maintain inventories at adequate levels, to fully meet the demand of customers, and to respond effectively to changes that occur. The planning and scheduling task is important for most companies, so according to some authors, there is a need for further analysis of the practical use of production planning and control systems. Within the context of production planning and control systems development, in the 1990s were launched the APS systems, which represent an innovation when compared to their predecessors. This paper intended to provide through a literature review, the concepts, structure, capabilities, implementation process and benefits of using APS systems in the companies production planning and control. The main contribution of this research is to show a strong conceptual understanding regarding APS systems, which can be used as a solid theoretical reference for future researches.
Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) Systems: A Systematic Literature Review
Advances in Transdisciplinary Engineering
Planning and scheduling are important functions for industrial systems to operate effectively. Their principal aim is to detail how production resources will be used so that its demand is timely met. In literature, there are several works that propose mathematical models for production planning and scheduling for different production scenarios, accounting for different resources configurations and other limitations. However, it was only recently that advanced planning and scheduling systems (APS), making use of these models, started being more widely used and discussed. This work presents the results of a systematic literature review, developed by applying the ProKnow-C method, on APS systems. An overview of the main publications is provided, classifying them in new methods, models or approaches; heuristic approaches; Lagrangian relaxation techniques; and genetic algorithms. The future of APS systems is also discussed, particularly regarding difficulties such as human dependence, us...
i ii Advanced planning and scheduling systems in manufacturing planning and control processes Abstract An advanced planning and scheduling (APS) systems is defined as any computer program that uses advanced mathematical algorithms or logic to perform optimization, and/or simulation on finite capacity scheduling, sourcing, capital planning, resource planning, forecasting, demand planning and others. The expectations of APS systems have been high, both from academia and industry in the subject area of manufacturing planning and control. Relative the massive interest there has not been much written about how APS systems are used in practice and what effects an APS approach really results in. This thesis focuses on the use of APS systems in manufacturing planning and control (MPC) processes, and the research questions is to explore how APS can support these processes, which benefits that can be achieved and which prerequisites to consider when using APS systems. Three case studies have been conducted including seven case companies that use APS in different MPC processes. The results are presented in four appended papers. Empirical data from the case studies have mainly been conducted thorough interviews with actors involved in MPC processes.
Optimisation and Constraint Based Heuristic Methods for Advanced Planning and Scheduling Systems
International Journal of Industrial Engineering-theory Applications and Practice, 2016
Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRPII) systems are unable to prevent capacity problems occurring on the shop floor such as varying workloads, changing bottlenecks, high Work-in-Process (WIP) levels, lower machine utilisation, less throughput, late deliveries that cannot be resolved easily in the short term because production scheduling is based on fixed lead times and backward scheduling logic. For this reason, a new breed of concepts called APS (Advanced Planning and Scheduling) systems emerged which include finite capacity planning at the shop floor level through constraint based planning. In this paper, we present a Constraint Programming (CP) model to show how optimisation models could be used in this context. We also present a two phase heuristic to solve this complicated APS problem. While jobs are assigned to the best eligible machines to smooth the workload on the machines in the first phase, a constraint based scheduling heuristic schedules jobs once they are assigned to ...
The potential benefits of advanced planning and scheduling systems in sales and operations planning
2010
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore what potential benefits may be achieved by using advanced planning and scheduling (APS) systems in the sales and operations planning (S&OP) process. Design/methodology/approach -The paper investigates benefits at the S&OP process level by interviewing APS experts and APS users. Several methods have been used; literature review, Delphi study, and a case study at a company in the chemical industry which uses APS system support in the S&OP process. Findings -Three types of potential benefits were found to be achieved when using APS systems in the S&OP process; benefits concerning decision support, planning efficiency and learning effects. The most common type was decision support benefits according to APS users and APS experts. The results from the case company showed that the benefits perceived in the different S&OP activities differed. In the activities concerning the preparation and generation of delivery plans, the perceived benefits mainly concerned learning effects. In the activities concerning the generation of a production plan, the benefits were foremost found in planning efficiency. In the S&OP meeting decision support benefits were highest valued. The reason for the different results can be explained by the aim of the activity, how APS was used in the activity, the user characteristics and the design of the model and access and quality of planning data.
A systemic approach to define and characterize Advanced Planning Systems (APS)
Computers & Industrial Engineering, 2015
Advanced Planning Systems (APS) have become an important tool for manufacturing and production companies that require a specific system to optimize production, logistic, material and human resources, etc. with the goal of improving the economy of the companies and offer a good customer service. An APS must be integrated to the Enterprise's System (such as an ERP), but this task usually lacks of a specific methodology to be performed and is generally made ad-hoc. With the ultimate objective to provide an approach to facilitate this integration, this work presents a characterization of the APS from a systemic point of view, using standardized Software Engineering concepts. The idea is to provide a definition and characterization of Advanced Planning Systems, by establishing the main goals of this type of system, and considering Functional Requirements, Quality Attributes and a reference model for the architecture. The selected choices are established on the base of several international standards from the Software Engineering area, such as the SEBoK (System Engineering Body of Knowledge) and the SQuaRE (Software product Quality Requirements and Evaluation) model, among others, and aim to serve as a base line for the general concept of APS.
Improving the Assesment of Advanced Planning Systems by Including Optimization Experts' Knowledge
2017
Advanced Planning Systems (APS) are core for many production companies that require the optimization of its operations using applications and tools such as planning, scheduling, logistic, among others. Because of this, process optimization experts are required to develop those models and, therefore, are stakeholders for this system's domain. Since the core of the APSs are models to improve the company performance, the knowledge of this group of stakeholders can enhance the APS architecture evaluation. However, methods available for this task require participants with extensive Software Engineering (SE) understanding. This article proposes a modification to ATAM (Architecture Trade-off Analysis Method) to include process optimization experts during the evaluation. The purpose is to create an evaluation methodology centred on what these stakeholders value the most in an APS, to capitalize their expertise on the area and obtain valuable information and assessment regarding the APS, models and solvers interoperability.
Applying advanced planning systems for supply chain planning: three case studies
2007
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore how standardized advanced planning systems (APS) can be used for solving planning problems at tactical and strategic levels, and to identify the perceived effects of using APS. Design/methodology/approach -Multiple case studies involving three cases using APS software for strategic network planning and master production scheduling are conducted. Comparative analysis explores how the planning situation, the model design and use of the APS impact the perceived planning effects. Findings -Findings show how APS support cost-optimized strategic network design in one case and how efficiency, capacity utilization and delivery service problems were decreased in two cases using APS in global master planning processes. The cases show how APS supports cross-functional integration and supply chain commitment to a common plan. Research directions are suggested about the feasibility of APS in situations with various planning complexities, how design of the optimization model creates complexity and affects the planning process, data gathering requirements when using APS, the role and design of the planning organization, and how to achieve positive planning effects, such as finding global optimum and single plan commitment.
Novel Approaches for the Integration of Planning and Scheduling
Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 2019
The problem of integrating planning and scheduling models is addressed. Many of the previous models proposed in the literature assume that both models need to be solved over the same time horizon, leading to intractable models. Integrated models with shorter scheduling horizons are considered. To maintain the trade-off balance between the decision levels, the objective functions are appropriately scaled. The second modeling aspect explored is the communication between planners and schedulers. Communication through inventory policies is explored as an alternative to the traditional communication through production and inventory targets. The resulting models are evaluated in a tailored simulation framework. Models with a shorter scheduling horizon, which cover the decision horizon of the planning, obtain similar profits as the full space models. The communication through inventory policies leads to lower inventories, while maintaining similar profit levels. The proposed models and the modular modeling methodology used are contributions to bring decision support systems closer to practice.