Manufacturing companies are interfacing with customers who are increasingly demanding and competition is becoming more and more pressing. To remain competitive, these companies therefore need to guarantee an excellent level of service to their customers, while containing costs and increasing the efficiency of the entire production chain. These challenges require companies to review production plans frequently, to respond to the daily unforeseen events of an unstable market and to cooperate effectively within company
departments.
Companies initially entrust the programming of the production department to their ERP management system. ERP is by nature a useful tool for data collection, but it is not designed for data processing and very dynamic scenarios. For this reason, the management system is accompanied by dozens and sometimes hundreds of Excel and Project files, by its users.
However, the management of production with multiple poorly integrated tools leads to a decentralisation of information. This has significant consequences in terms of responsiveness and control that affect all business areas:
- The Supply Chain Manager, not having complete visibility and control of production, has difficulty balancing resources and proactively managing the requests of the sales department;
- The sales department is unable to obtain reliable delivery dates in a short time, affecting the level of service provided to customers;
- The IT Manager has to manage company information outside the ERP on unsuitable tools.
With these premises, it becomes very difficult to respond to an increasingly uncertain market and remain competitive by guaranteeing an excellent level of service, containing costs and increasing production efficiency.
There is a solution: APS (Advanced Planning and Scheduling)
To achieve ambition challenges in an uncertain market, the best solution for manufacturing companies is definitely to eliminate the numerous Excel sheets by integrating the company’s ERP with advanced software for production planning and scheduling (also known by the acronym APS). The companies that have chosen CyberPlan , Cybertec’s famous APS, find all the necessary winning features (previously sought in the various offline tools) in a single tool:
- powerful algorithms with advanced logic and integrated into the ERP;
- calculation speed and ease of use far superior to an Excel;
- intuitive graphical interface greater than that of the Projects.
With these features, planners are able to easily verify the consequences of every possible action. The results are optimized production plans and scheduled at finished capacity to take into account all resource and material constraints. Companies that have integrated CyberPlan into their management system or ERP have found the following benefits:
- improving the punctuality of deliveries and the level of customer service;
- increased saturation of resources and reduced set-up times;
- reduction of warehouses and crossing times;
- collaboration between purchasing, production and sales.
In addition, the savings obtained in terms of capital invested in inventories and reduction of operating costs, allows the investment to be returned within the year.
CyberPlan allows companies to achieve certain, measurable and lasting results, providing an effective response to current competitiveness needs, reducing costs and exceeding the expectations of their customers.
By integrating directly into the management system, it eliminates the need for other offline tools, keeping information centralised and shared. The Supply Chain Manager has complete visibility over the production process, receiving optimal and feasible plans consistent with the needs and availability of materials and resources. This makes it possible to reduce production and management costs. The Sales Department has at its disposal a more stable and precise output from the planning, which allows a more consistent and reliable scheduling of deliveries. The IT Manager has the possibility to provide effective support to the business, centralizing the planning process in a single system and avoiding the proliferation of unshared tools.
Learn more about CyberPlan.
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