Simple integration unlocks the power of APS

Following the release, ERP vendor Access Group has named Orchestrate as a preferred provider of advanced planning and scheduling tools - key to the switch is simple integration. In short, for Coventry-based Production Modelling, it's quite a coup, says Rod Schregardus, operations director at the company. And he's quietly optimistic that other ERP vendors will take note and also select Orchestrate as their preferred APS solution. Not necessarily because of Orchestrate's powerful planning and scheduling features, undoubted though these are. But because of Orchestrate's extensive rich integration capabilities, which make it possible to install and connect it to an ERP system in a matter of hours – something that is not possible with competing APS solutions, insists Schregardus. And the story behind the move says a lot about the importance of IT integration to today's manufacturers, he says. "Today's manufacturers expect to get fully-customised solutions, despite buying off-the-shelf products," he explains. "So IT integration needs to be simple, fast, and contained within standard software." From the outset, then, Orchestrate always had 'out of the box' integration as a design objective. The most powerful yet of Production Modelling's intuitive and user-friendly APS solutions, Orchestrate has the ability to import data from almost any source, and with minimal configuration. At its simplest, that means users can readily import conventional text, spreadsheet and comma-delimited files – handy for 'what-if' analyses and simulations of new production processes. And at its most powerful, that means true enterprise-level integration, allowing Orchestrate to be seamlessly integrated with any ERP suite. "As standard, Orchestrate will import data from any ODBC, OLEDB or SQL data sources," says Schregardus. "Sales orders, works orders, purchase orders, bills-of-material, inventory levels, planned maintenance tasks – you name it, and Orchestrate can import it 'out of the box', with simple configuration routines taking a handful of hours to complete." In practice, then, that means that easy integration is now possible between Orchestrate and ERP solutions from a huge variety of vendors – Microsoft Dynamics, Sage, JDE, SAP, Infor, Access, and many bespoke ERP and MRPII systems. And the result, says Schregardus, is that it's now possible to cost-effectively bring the advantages of APS to a vast number of manufacturers who know they need a better scheduling tool, but who have been put off by the integration challenges that have been involved. "Even now, too many companies are still planning production on spreadsheets," he notes. "Not only is it inefficient and time consuming, but it's a job that spreadsheets weren't designed for. So the resulting production schedules aren't optimal – and people spend their time managing the planning process, instead of managing production more efficiently." And that's not all. Not only aren't spreadsheets efficient when it comes to factory planning, they're not effective, either. So in the process, manufacturers miss out on significant opportunities to improve customer due-date performance, capacity utilisation, and work-in-progress levels. "Traditional MRP-based scheduling logic works on the basis of infinite capacity," he notes. "As an order comes in, it drops in to a weekly or monthly 'bucket' of work, and management have to figure out how to achieve it. It's not so much planning and scheduling as a simple statement of what must be achieved – without providing any help in achieving it." APS, in contrast, most definitely provides that assistance – and at a surprisingly affordable cost. In short, APS provides a means of planning and scheduling that reflects the reality imposed by constraints and resources on the factory floor, and actively constructs schedules so as to maximise their utilisation, while simultaneously optimising customer due date performance. "APS says, 'here's the existing order book and workload, here's the available manpower and capacity, and here are times when capacity isn't available due to things like planned maintenance'," explains Schregardus. "It then constructs a schedule that takes all those factors into account. Trying to factor in all that information with spreadsheets – or in people's heads – is difficult, error-prone, and rarely results in an optimal solution." Fast take-off All of which was music to the ears of Lufthansa Technik Landing Gear Services, which maintains, repairs and overhauls aircraft landing gear for airline customers such as Virgin, British Airways, Air France and Ryanair. Until the introduction of Orchestrate, planning and scheduling had been performed using multiple spreadsheets, which were created and maintained by different people in different departments. No longer – thanks to Orchestrate, and an integration process with the company's bespoke ERP system which took just hours to complete. The time taken up by planning has been cut dramatically, and for the first time the business has an accurate end-to-end view of its production plans, helping to improve productivity. Just as importantly, due date performance and schedule compliance have soared. And, says Schregardus, such stories are increasingly resonating with ERP vendors, for whom a cost-effective, easy-to-integrate APS solution has obvious attractions. Take Access Group and its 10,000-strong customer base, for instance. Access had always offered its customers APS functionality within its Access SupplyChain suite, says Schregardus, explaining that for years Access had provided it through one of the best-known proprietary solutions on the market. But Orchestrate prompted Access to take a fresh look at its approach to APS, impressed by both the ease of integration and the extensive blue chip customer base, which includes Siemens, B/E Aerospace, Walker Precision and Verna Group. Specifically, says Schregardus, Access sent one of its experts to spend a day at Production Modelling, reviewing Orchestrate and putting it through its paces. And the result – as a recently published Access Group press release highlights – is that Access quickly came to the conclusion that Orchestrate's integration capabilities far outstripped the capabilities of the existing solution that it recommended to prospective customers. Better still, says Schregardus, it's full two-way integration. Not only does the ERP system continually feed Orchestrate with outstanding sales orders, works order inventory positions and the like, but Orchestrate is feeding back anticipated due dates and updates. Inevitably, Access was tempted to showcase Orchestrate in the next product demonstration to a prospective customer, a food manufacturer. "They signed up straightaway," says Schregardus. "So did the next prospective Access customer we did a joint demonstration for." And the result has been that it is now Production Modelling's Orchestrate that is the preferred APS solution at Access, with Access consultants able to install a fully-connected Orchestrate APS solution to Access SupplyChain's database in less than a day. "The key to bringing the benefits of advanced planning and scheduling to more manufacturing businesses is simpler and rapid integration with existing ERP systems," sums up Schregardus. "That was a design goal of Orchestrate, and with Access we've got an ERP partner who has recognised this within its own offerings to customers."