It is now evident how digital technologies are about to create great changes in all contexts, including industrial ones. One of the areas most subject to profound changes is that of production scheduling and optimization.
Are we really aware of what the hidden risks of digital transformation are? Let’s discover them together to avoid them, maximizing the benefits of digital innovation projects.
PLANNING INCONSISTENCIES
The area that will be most subject to profound changes will be that of production planning and scheduling, in fact it is one of the areas that today presents the greatest problems, where high current investments are contrasted with numerous missing materials, in the face of long delivery times and uncertain dates. An area dominated by continuous urgencies, where the ERP must be supported by an infinity of Excel sheets and continuously corrected manually by willing operators.
Among the causes of this situation are the mechanisms implemented in ERPs: mechanisms such as Material Requirements Planning that were devised in the 1970s and that have not undergone significant changes in the following 50 years. Few people know that MRP leads to amplifying errors in the data to the point of substantially requiring the control and manual review of each proposal generated by it.
These manual activities are supported by countless spreadsheets or Excel files that promote the creation of “information silos” and are not compatible with an increasingly digital factory run by digital natives. These inconsistencies will become evident and will lead managers to identify and use more advanced solutions that are currently used by less than 1% of companies, the leaders in their sectors.
APS (Advanced Planning System) SOLUTIONS
These new solutions called APS (Advanced Planning System) extend the planning capabilities of the ERP, to which they connect, eliminating Excel. The main features of these systems are:
- They add the finished capacity to the planning (materials and resources);
- Interactive what-if analysis skills;
- Graphical power for quick identification of factory problems.
THE CYBERTEC TIP
Cybertec is a pioneer in the field of APS and has always focused its attention on the continuous improvement of its solution, becoming the only Italian company awarded by APICS (read the article). Cybertec’s suggestion to companies is to consider a balance of IoT investments with those in APS so that the results of the former are not conditioned or largely frustrated by outdated planning systems.
FULL INTERVIEW
Read the full interview by Eng. Kirchner, CEO of Cybertec, who since the 1980s has collaborated with the world’s leading experts in innovation (such as mit in Boston). Thanks to this dedication Cybertec designs and develops the best production optimization solutions used daily by leading companies and awarded by the best Supply Chain organizations (see the APICS award).