Why do you need an APS (Advanced Planning & Scheduling) system?

As manufacturing companies adopt lean ideas such as reducing inventories and making the decision to manufacture only what their customers order then they start to expose the limitations of the generic planning and scheduling tools provided by most ERP systems. Your ERP system probably already has most of the data that your APS system needs to accurately manage your capacities and give your customers realistic promise dates.

Assessment

At its simplest level, an APS system will dramatically reduce the time it takes to synchronize all the day to day changes with your available capacity. By reducing the time it takes to schedule your plant to only a few minutes each day you can schedule more often and your scheduler can spend more time resolving problems before they ever happen. This may sound too simplistic but this alone can have a dramatic impact on the way you run your business and, of course, your bottom line.

  Your APS system gives you the ability to tie your day to day management decisions with your strategic objectives such as:
  • *      Improving your on-time deliveries
  • *      Improving plant efficiencies by reducing setups
  • *      Reducing WIP

Lastly you will find that your APS system will drastically reduce confusion and the amount of time you spend manually expedting. You will be able to answer customer inquiries right from your desk because your schedule will not only know where every job is at any moment in time, it will also know when it is scheduled to complete.

LSI recommends and uses the Preactor suite of scheduling tools for the following reasons:

    • *      Preactor is the world's most powerful and popular APS system which is why it is used by over 2,200 companies in over 64 countries
    • *      Preactor provides the best price performance
    • *      Preactor provides the most functionality out of the box
    • *      Preactor integrates easily with any ERP system
    • *      Preactor provides a wide range of tools to customize your scheduling solution
    • *      Preactor has local support in over 64 different countries
    • *      Since 2001, we have used Preactor to deliver innovative solutions for our clients.