APS Advanced Planning and Scheduling System Basic Concepts and Feature Description

APS is short for Advanced Scheduling and Scheduling System. Overall, the APS system includes the following aspects:

• Based on model scheduling, the model can be customized by the needs of manufacturing enterprises
• The system has the function of automatic optimization of production planning
• Visual user interface, good user experience, easy to operate
• APS systems import the goals and conditions of the plan from third-party systems or EXCEL: orders, work orders, inventory, materials, suppliers and warehouses, etc., and APS and ERP systems exchange the most data
• According to the daily production report and the actual progress of the site, the rolling schedule and various adjustments are carried out

Minghe APS Advanced Scheduling System

Production planning is a link in the entire supply chain system, and every enterprise is a link in the supply chain. As a supplier of downstream enterprises, it cannot deliver as planned, which will affect the planning of downstream enterprises and trigger interlocking uncertainty. For upstream suppliers, the uncertainty of production plans also brings trouble to the supplier's delivery plan, and excessive inventory or under-materials are the consequences of uncertain plans.

APS scheduling system is a powerful tool for enterprises to optimize the supply chain, enterprises need to consider several major aspects of the use of APS system, as well as possible solutions:

1. Relationship with ERP

Manufacturing companies often need to go to the ERP enterprise management system first, and then go to the APS Advanced Planning Scheduling System.

2. Interface between APS and ERP

Interface implementations can be done in several ways:

• Some ERPs do not allow direct access to tables or views, and can only import necessary data, such as SAP, through development interface functions;
• If erp can open the view, by defining the table and data structure, you can read the required data, this implementation is fast and simple
• Exporting reports from ERP to EXCEL, APS importing EXCEL table data, all ERPs can achieve this way.
• After completing the scheduling, the APS system needs to return the production plan and other data to the ERP, such as the start time of the work order, the order delivery time, the ERP can read into the EXCEL data table, and can also achieve the required functions through the API interface

3. Do I have to go on the MES Manufacturing Execution System before I consider the APS Advanced Planning Scheduling System?

This is not necessary. While APS systems require on-site production progress to track the completion of a plan, there are several ways to do this. For example, production reports entered daily during shift changes are a basic source of data. In addition, some APS vendors provide simple work reporting modules that can be reported through pCs or mobile phones, which can achieve similar functions.

4. Optimization methods

APS systems are based on constraint scheduling. There are two main ways to optimize:

• Scheduling by rules: By defining complex collations, weights, priorities, etc., tell the APS system which tasks to rank first under various constraints. The advantage of regular scheduling is that it is relatively fast.
• Goal-based optimization: Set goals for the entire plan, such as the lowest cost and the greatest profit. Set costs for each job, such as finished equipment work, idle finished goods, order delay penalty costs, and so on, to solve the scenario with the lowest cost if the constraints are met.
• Regardless of the algorithm, the model constraints need to be met

5. About the bottleneck process

If there is a very clear bottleneck process, you can use the first bottleneck process, the front of the bottleneck process is inverted, and the process after the bottleneck is in the front. However, the reality is that bottlenecks and non-bottleneck processes are often staggered, so it is possible to queue backwards to the past point in time. This requires a more rational optimization approach.

6. About front and reverse rows

Inverted row is limited to under-orders, otherwise it is impossible to avoid the queue going to the past. Even when the order is insufficient, the inverted row will produce a lot of unreasonable work arrangements, such as intermittent work, not starting on time, etc. In the system we implemented, the inverted method was never actually used, and when the order was insufficient, it was more reasonable to plan by modifying the working calendar, increasing the holiday time, and closing a few lines.

7. Tracking modifications of the program

The situation on the workshop site changes at any time, order changes, production delays, equipment abnormalities, all need to modify the plan. After the plan is modified, it is easy to cause conflicts, such as process conflicts, auxiliary resource conflicts, etc., which need to be alarmed and corrected by the system.

8. Changes to the Order

Order changes, emergency insertion orders, equipment abnormalities, etc., all need to quickly modify the work plan. In the case of multiple processes interlacing, manual insertion of orders can cause a lot of conflicts. APS systems typically do this by rearranging the system.

9. Schedule multiple production administrators together

Although automatic scheduling is fast, it takes time to track progress and plan changes, and if there is more equipment, multiple management jobs are required. The division of labor by workshop or by process is a relatively common division of labor. APS systems need to have a viable solution to support multi-tube scheduling.

10. Multi-branch scheduling

In finished product manufacturing enterprises, product assembly and branch planning often have the problem of mismatch, semi-finished product inventory is too high, and orders that need to be shipped are often underpaid during assembly. Due to the different models of each plant and the large order volume, it is impossible for one person to drain the entire plant. Therefore, how to coordinate the plans of each branch plant and the final assembly plant is a difficult problem that the APS system needs to solve.

11. Material Condition

In industries where material shortages are severe, such as PCBA, scheduling by material condition is an important feature that APS must implement. If you need to import APS and schedule by inventory, the demand should first sort out and standardize inventory management, especially in the management of in-transit inventory (in-transit inventory refers to the incoming material plan given by the supplier)

12. Permission Control

In large enterprises, model maintenance and scheduling are responsible for different departments, and one person scheduling and multiple people can see is a basic need. Therefore, data sharing and permission control are necessary.