I was recently requested to review a competitor’s software product to find where Planvisage provided a competitive advantage. I soon learned that this competitive product was in fact no competition at all. The main selling point was the sizzle offered by the competitor, but absent was the steak. I found it alarming that they used all the required industry buzz words, and had the most colorful displays I have ever seen. In fact they recommended companies provide users with two monitors to house all the beautiful graphics, referred to as a planning “cockpit”. To determine a schedule was a laborious nightmare as the user had to duck and dive into many screens to see where the problems originated, and to then apply fixes in the hope of solving all the problems manually. As a consultant I recommend that if prospects wishes to compare 2 or 3 solutions that they first draw up a list of essential functions required to meet their desired business process and do a software comparison to their checklist. Next review a “day in the life” of a planner to see how many steps are required to establish a valid schedule. Since this is the fundamental design provided within the Planvisage solution, expect to see meaningful results after executing the plan. Eliminate solutions that call on users to figure out how to solve the scheduling challenge by reviewing a number of very colorful, or not so colorful screens. As you will see below, by effectively establishing planning criteria, Planvisage will do the hard work for the user, taking very many variables and constraints into consideration, and provide a valid schedule. Planvisage is relatively simple to use, but simultaneously a highly sophisticated solution. Purpose and Benefits Manufacturing facilities and management face numerous challenges in today’s marketplace with:
rapid changes in product mix,
shorter life cycles,
smaller and more frequent shipment quantities,
rising customer expectations,
increased global competition,
lead time constraints,
reduced margins, and
production operations that are more complex
Daily challenges encountered include:
supplier delays,
cycle time variations,
material rejection, and
resource breakdowns, etc.
This scheduling challenge is exacerbated by due date and/or order quantity changes from customers. Realistic production plans may not be firm for more than an hour or two.
Planvisage APS addresses these issues for management through:
a robust value-added software application supporting management and planners
Determining priority planning and scheduling decisions to allocate scarce material, labor and constrained capacity to high-value customers
Provide Available to Promise (ATP) firm due date delivery commitments to customers
Optimize sourcing decisions for raw materials from suppliers, considering order quantities to meet real-time capacity constraints
Communicate real time production status to the marketing and sales team
Consolidation of all department data to provide timely and reliable reporting
Improve profitability through effective working capital management
increased inventory turns
reduced overtime
reduced operating costs
less waste and scrap
greater productivity of all resources including labor, materials, capacity
increased sales
increased profitability
Some of Planvisage’s APS salient features include: Capacity Planning
Automatically allocates an alternate resource when primary resources are not available
Automatically schedules alternate routings when primary routings are not available
Planning consideration for machine break-down time, planned maintenance schedules, holidays, and overtime
Accommodates constraints including setup time, wait time, queue time and yield variations
Different resource types modeled including batch, pooled, aggregate, subcontract, or labor
Planning for additional resources such as tools or fixtures
Utilization percentages are factored in load calculations
Model sequence dependent setup time, e.g. color, width
Material Planning
Automatically selects alternate item when primary item not available
Considers lot size constraints when generating production or purchase orders
Transfer batch quantity releases when processing material across operations
Optional multiple vendor split percentages across suppliers
Consolidation of purchase orders
Operation level consumption
Calculates safety stocks and triggers automatic replenishment
Plans capacity loading based on material availability
Other Features
Considers both finite material and capacity constraints simultaneously rather than sequentially
What-if analysis capability to determine if a new order can be satisfied, given a set of orders already scheduled in the system
Allocate constrained capacity & material to high priority customers
Predict due date of orders taking material and capacity constraints into account
Warning how work orders and sales orders are impacted when:
Suppliers delay shipments
Cycle time variation increases or decreases
Material is rejected
Resource or capacity breakdowns
Different strategies for planning minimum WIP or maximum resource utilization
User Interface
Role based executable work flows
Excel style interface making data maintenance simple
Printing or forwarding email direct from any screen
Visual representation for Bill of Material and supply chain diagram
Color coding scheme for problem orders
Ability to customize menus, buttons, column headers, and labels
Graphical display of scheduled orders using a Gantt Chart
Scheduled orders can be dragged and dropped manually
Graphically see links between up- and downstream operations
Ability to create Bill of Material through drag and drop action
User authorization privileges
Additional benefits:
Improved inventory management with purchases made at the right time and appropriate quantity
WIP is minimized as operations are productively sequenced
Reduced resource downtime waiting on material
Reduced cycle time by using alternate work centers
Higher on-time delivery customer service levels
Flexible configuration Design flexibility supports the idiosyncrasies of each manufacturing facility. Planvisage software and application consultants working together with user management require an understanding of management’s business process and to configure Planvisage to meet the client company needs. With this in mind we address multiple options to allow Planvisage to work effectively for each client with a well-trained user community. Controlling Parameters Planvisage provides a large selection of parameters to help support each manufacturing facility within a corporate group. That implies that a corporation might have one division making a continuous process product and another a job shop metal cutting batch process operation. Planvisage must be setup to handle the specifics of each plant. Pegging Parameters
All or no inventory (This parameter defines whether the demand should be fulfilled only if entire Inventory is available. If the parameter is set to true it should be fulfilled by a single order in the Inventory): true/false
All or no surplus (This parameter defines whether the demand should be fulfilled by a single work order or multiple work orders. If the parameter is set to true the demand should be fulfilled by a single work order): true/false
Consolidate interval (Consolidation interval specifies the time period up to which the supplies can be consolidated. e.g. the user might want to group all procurements for 1 week and batch the POs): quantity
Consolidate interval unit of measure: days, weeks, months, quarters, years
Pegging priority 1 (The order given in which the pegging has to be performed, with Pegging Priority 1 being considered first. See below for more detail):
Primary inventory,
Primary existing orders,
Primary new orders,
Alternate inventory,
Alternate existing orders,
None
Pegging priority 2: Primary inventory, Primary existing orders, Primary new orders, Alternate inventory, Alternate existing orders, None
Pegging priority 3: Primary inventory, Primary existing orders, Primary new orders, Alternate inventory, Alternate existing orders, None
Pegging priority 4: Primary inventory, Primary existing orders, Primary new orders, Alternate inventory, Alternate existing orders, None
Pegging priority 5: Primary inventory, Primary existing orders, Primary new orders, Alternate inventory, Alternate existing orders, None
For example, the planning engine might first look for “Item1” in inventory if Pegging Priority 1 is specified as Primary Inventory. If “Item1” is present in inventory, and based on “All or No Inventory parameter”, the planning engine decides if it can take the existing inventory even though it cannot specify the entire demand. If all of the demand is not satisfied, then it looks for the next parameter – Pegging Priority 2. If this is set to Alternate Inventory, the planning engine looks for “AltItem1” in Inventory, also considering “All or No Inventory” value. If all of the demand is not satisfied, then it looks for the next parameter – Pegging Priority 3 possibly set to Primary Existing Orders. Thus the planning engine looks for any work orders for “Item1” that is being completed and assigns that to satisfy the demand, provided the demand can be satisfied on time. If all of the demand is not satisfied, then it look for the next parameter – Pegging Priority 4 set to “Alternate Existing Orders”. Thus the planning engine looks for any work orders for “Altitem1” that is being completed and assigns that to satisfy the demand, provided the demand can be satisfied on time. If all of the demand is not satisfied, then it looks for the next parameter – Pegging Priority 5 i.e. creates a new Work order for “Item1”, provided it can satisfy the order on time. In short, Planvisage software allows for sophisticated planning options, based on user defined choices.
Planning Parameters
Time horizon (how far into the future do you wish to plan?): quantity
Time horizon unit of measure: days, weeks, months, quarters, years
Frozen horizon (how far into the future do you wish to firm the plan to restrict changes?): quantity
Frozen horizon unit of measure: days, weeks, months, quarters, years
Manufacturing type: continuous, discrete
Decimal places (Number of decimal places to consider rounding off if the manufacturing type is continuous.): quantity
Clean up in planning (Database acts as repository for all production related data to carry out planning, execution and also to maintain history. During planning; distribution, procurement and work orders are generated. When plan is run again, all the generated orders are deleted except those Work Orders which are released or scheduled, Procurement or Distribution Orders which are ordered, shipped or received, User locked the quantity or locked the pegging Orders falling within frozen horizon. Now new orders and pegging’s are generated based on the changed conditions.): true/false
Clean up tolerance percentage (Specified to cleanup any value greater than the parameter, and provide a cleaned-up plan): quantity
Resolve type: Material and capacity shortage, Material shortage, None
Order late limit (How much a sales order can be delayed while trying to resolve material or capacity shortage): quantity
Order late unit of measure: days, weeks, months, quarters, years
Fix cross feeds (During planning of sales orders, it might happen that earlier supply would be pegged to later demand and vice versa. After planning of all the sales orders, fix cross feeds will resolve the problem and re-assign the pegging): true/false
Number of days in week: quantity
Order date format: yy, yy-mm, yy-mm-dd, mm, mm-dd, none
Order suffix (this allows the user to select how many digits they wish to show after a sales, work, or purchase order has been generated. e.g WO_0001 if = 4, or PO_00000001 if 8): 2,3,4,5,6,7,8
Schedule parameters
Maximum wait time for earliest possible start time (Amount of time resource can wait to sequence the similar setups. This is used when there is sequence dependent setup time. If a resource is running Item A, and is expected to complete at 10 am, and there is another work order for Item A which is going to arrive at 11 am. If max wait time for EPST is 1 hour, then the resource will wait for 1 hour and then load Item A. If max wait time is 0.5 hour, the resource will not wait and will load Item whichever is available.): quantity
Maximum wait time for earliest possible start time unit of measure: minutes, hours
Maximum bucket span to schedule (Buckets are grouped based on these values. If value is 3, then 3 buckets are grouped together. Use of this parameter depends on the type of scheduling strategy, Bucket Based: Scheduling is done first on a bucket group for all resources and then moves to next bucket group and so on. Pull-Push: Orders are scheduled based on priority within the bucket group. Suppose there is priority 1 and 2 orders within a group, priority 1 orders are scheduled and then priority 2 orders. It then moves to next bucket group and repeats the process.): quantity
Resource availability while pulling orders: true/false
Scheduling strategy: pull-push, bucket based
Scheduling type: Just-in-Time, Resource Utilization
Buckets to schedule (Number of buckets to schedule if the scheduling is run from workflow): quantity
Setup time in non-working: true/false
Always consider setup time: true/false
Generate continuous schedule on non-working time (If running a continuous process, do you wish to ensure no gaps between operations): true/false
Generate continuous schedule: true/false
Problem Parameters
Problem tolerance percentage (The tolerance value states the percentage of tolerance, before flagging any problem as a problem. e.g. if a sales order is for 1000 and 999 is satisfied, and the problem tolerance is 10%, in the problem summary an “Order Short” problem is not created.): value
Cost Parameters
Labor cost: value
Labor cost unit of measure: hours
Overhead percentage: value
Capacity parameters
Bucket build ahead (The number of buckets to go back for capacity if the capacity is not available in the just-in-time bucket): value
Bucket build ahead unit of measure: days, weeks, months, quarters, years
Capacity priority: Alternate capacity—bucket build ahead, Bucket build ahead—alternate capacity
Short bucket (Size of buckets in the short term planning. This is based on the total cycle time to make a product. Short buckets are usually days): value
Short bucket unit of measure: days, weeks, months, quarters, years
Medium bucket (Size of buckets in the medium term planning. This will be size of buckets after the short bucket period is over. These are usually in weeks): value
Medium bucket unit of measure: weeks, months, quarters, years
Long bucket (Size of buckets in the long term planning. This will be the size of buckets after the medium bucket period is over until the end of the time horizon. These are usually in months): value
Long bucket unit of measure: months, quarters, years
Plant utilization percentage: value
Maintenance parameters
Time zone: select from a complete global list, none
Data Input/Output Caution If the client company is using the Planvisage Demand Planning solution: forecasting, replenishment, and distribution planning, then some of the requirements listed below may already exist in the database and since the solution is highly integrated, feeds will be provided to APS from Demand Planner. Data Fields The following addresses the data portion used for input to Planvisage APS. Please note that many data fields requested below are optional and there to support the user administrator with helpful information. Of equal importance is if fields have not been suggested, Planvisage permits each client company to add fields to support the way they wish to process and manipulate data. How will data be imported into Planvisage? The preferred method is either a database to database transfer in any of Microsoft SQL, Oracle, or IBM’s DB2. However in most circumstances ERP systems are rightly protective of their databases and will rather create an output file that can be imported into Planvisage. The reverse is equally true, database to database hookups are frowned upon to export information from Planvisage back to the host system. Planvisage can flexibly process Excel (xls or xlsx versions), text (txt), data (dat), Comma Separated Values (csv), Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) or SQL formats. How will data be exported to the host system? The same rules apply as stated in import above. Users Each user must be entered into the system with a User Identification, Password, Description, First and Last Name, Address, City, Phone, Email Address, and Alert Intervals Roles Roles are established for a group of users requiring an Identifier, Description, Type, Customer or Supplier Identifier—if applicable Role Information Each role is controlled within the application as to which data screens the role may access and if the Role Users are granted permission to: Add, Edit, Delete, and/or View Only data User Role This is where the users are linked to Roles Role Alerts This is where Alerts are assigned to Roles At a high level Planvisage requires the following master data files:
Plant Master
Product/Item Master
Customer Master
Vendor or Supplier Master
Location Master
Bill of Material
Bill of Material By Products
Bill of Material Alternate
Unit of Measure Master
Location Calendars
Open Purchase Order Transaction
Open Production Order Transactions
Open Customer Order Transactions
Resource Master
Routing Master
Operations Master
Additional Operations Resource
Sequence Dependent Setup Time
Factory Parameters (these were discussed above)
Plant Master
Plant Identifier
Plant Description
Default User
Default User Role
Password
Product/Item Master
Location ID
Product Code/ID
Product Description
Product Group
Product Group Description
Unit of Measure
Product Type
Saleable Product Flag (Yes/No)
Holding Cost
Ordering Cost
Cost Unit of Measure
Primary Location Flag (Yes/No)
Lot Order ID
Lot Line ID
Quantity Available
Customer Master
Customer ID
Customer Description
Customer Address 1
Customer Address 2
City
State
Country
Customer Contact
Customer Telephone Number 1
Customer Telephone Number 2
Customer Fax
Customer Email
Approved Product ID
Approved Location ID
Approved Routing ID
Approved Item Group
Approved Customer Location
Approved Customer Item
Vendor or Supplier Master
Supplier ID
Supplier Description
Supplier Address 1
Supplier Address 2
Supplier City
Supplier State
Supplier Country
Supplier Contact
Supplier Telephone Number 1
Supplier Telephone Number 2
Supplier Fax
Supplier Email
Approved Product ID
Approved Item Group
Approved Location ID
Lead Time
Lead Time Unit of Measure (days, weeks)
Run Time
Run Time Unit of Measure
Maximum Lot Size
Lot Size Increment
Variable Cost
Priority
Vendor Share Percentage
Order by Days
Order Specific
Location Master
Location ID/Name
Location Description
Location Type
Bill of Material
Bill of Material ID
Parent Product ID
Child Product ID
Quantity Per
Routing ID
Minimum Lot Size
Lot Size Increment
Maximum Lot Size
Operation ID
Priority
Attribute
Consider Alternate
Order Specific
Check Material
Valid From
Valid To
Bill of Material by Products
Bill of Material Id
Item
Routing ID
By Product
Portion
Bill of Material Alternate
Bill of Material ID/Name
Item
Alternate Item
Quantity Per
Routing ID
Operation
Priority
Check material
Valid From
Valid To
Location Calendars
Shift Number
Start Shift Time
End Shift Time
Attribute
Pattern Name
Pattern Value
Working Shift Type
Open Purchase Order Transactions
Purchase Order ID
Purchase Order Line ID
Supplier ID
Product ID
Location ID
Quantity Planned
Quantity Planned Delivery Date
Order Status
Open Production Order Transactions
Order ID
Line ID
Product ID
Location ID
Quantity
Delivery Date
Open Customer Order Transactions
Customer ID
Sales Order ID
Sales Order Line ID
Product ID
Location ID
Quantity Ordered
Requested Delivery Date
Order Status
Resource Master
Resource ID/Name
Resource Description
Resource Type
Number of Resources
Sequence Dependent Setup Time
Load Capacity
Resource Capacity
Schedule Priority
Sub Resource Shift
Sub Resource Shift Unit of Measure
Consider Location Calendar
Consider Calendar
Interruptible
Fill Gaps
Sub Resource
Aggregate Resource
Routing Master
Routing ID
Routing Description
Operation
Resource ID
Operations Master
Operation
Operation Description
Routing ID
Resource ID
Operation Sequence
Production Rate Per
Run Time
Run Time Per
Fixed Time
Fixed Time Per
Transfer Batch Quantity
Minimum Queue Time
Minimum Queue Time Unit of Measure
Setup Time
Wait Time
Campaign
Interruptible
Transfer Batch Quantity
Yield
Number of Units
Batch Type
Space Utilization Percent
Variable Cost
Labor Cost
Number of Pooled Resources to use
Load Percentage
Operation Maximum Time Gap
Sub Resource Shift
Sub Resource Shift Unit of Measure
Operations Resource
Routing Name
Operation
Resource Name
Operation Sequence
Production Rate
Production Rate Per
Run Time
Run Time Per
Fixed Time
Fixed Time Per
Setup Time
Wait Time
Minimum Queue Time
Minimum Queue Time Unit of Measure
Campaign
Interruptible
Transfer Batch Quantity
Yield
Number of Units
Batch Type
Space Utilization Percent
Consider Alternate
Variable Cost
Labor Cost
Number of Pooled Resources to use
Load Percentage
Operation Maximum Time Gap
Sub Resource Shift
Sub Resource Shift Unit of Measure
Additional Operations Resource
Routing ID/Name
Operation
Resource Name
Operations Sequence
Additional Resource ID
Usage Percentage
Number of Units
Operations Resource Alternate
Operation Description
Routing ID
Resource ID
Operation Sequence
Production Rate Per
Run Time
Run Time Per
Fixed Time
Fixed Time Per
Minimum Queue Time
Minimum Queue Time Unit of Measure
Setup Time
Wait Time
Campaign
Interruptible
Transfer Batch Quantity
Yield
Number of Units
Batch Type
Space Utilization Percent
Consider Alternate
Variable Cost
Labor Cost
Number of Pooled Resources to use
Load Percentage
Operation Maximum Time Gap
Sub Resource Shift
Sub Resource Shift Unit of Measure
Sequence Dependent Setup Time
Attribute Name
Attribute Description
Setup Time
Attribute Order
Sort ASC
Sort Type
In every situation we work with the client to determine the very best solution to meet their unique operating environment. We would never expect a client to have to read a list like that above and figure out how to get the desired results. It would be akin to visiting your doctor with an ailment and he tells you to find and read the appropriate book from his expansive library. We are there offering professional support.