A new age for machine and materials management

A fit-for-purpose Advanced Planning and Scheduling system can plan, schedule and reschedule in a timely and accurate manner even in a complex business environment, explains a new white paper authored by Access Group.

The paper, titled: ‘A new age for machine and materials management’, goes on to highlight that with such a system it is possible to meet objectives and KPIs far beyond mere machine utilisation. This includes optimising labour, materials and even suppliers and subcontractors to meet and exceed commercial and customer goals.

“Patterns and volumes of demand are increasingly unpredictable and no longer necessarily respond to marketing. While ERP is fine for the higher-level discussions, it is essentially unaware of events and consequences at a daily or weekly level,” said Mike Straiton, Business Development Manager for Access. The white paper spotlights the key capabilities of a fit-for-purpose Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) system. In addition to these capabilities, Straiton adds that “an APS must be affordable, readily supported, easily learned and managed by the production and planning staff, not by IT specialists, and scaleable and configurable to the current and future needs of the company”.

The paper illustrates the Advanced Planning and Scheduling theme with a number of case studies, which highlight a range of benefits accrued by users of Orchestrate, the APS system from Access. This system has been successfully deployed by many customers in discrete manufacturing, batch process, contract manufacturing and other environments – either stand-alone or integrated with Access SupplyChain solutions.

To obtain a free copy of the ‘A new age for machine and materials management’ white paper from Access, please contact: Natalie.Smith@theaccessgroup.com