Optimize your scheduling with the software Production Scheduler

Pro­duc­tion Sched­uler is the ded­i­cat­ed tool for all man­u­fac­tur­ers pro­duc­ing with a process and who need bet­ter pro­duc­tion planning.

These indus­tri­al process­es are very often expressed in the form of recipes or for­mu­las. They require oper­a­tions or steps such as blend­ing, grind­ing, cook­ing, mix­ing, stir­ring, dis­till­ing, heat­ing and/or cool­ing, or reac­tive process­es, with the inser­tion of components/compounds at each stage of the process.

Process indus­tries need to sched­ule accord­ing to their own con­straints, and are look­ing to opti­mize their tanks, lines and reservoirs.

Infor Pro­duc­tion Sched­uler is a sup­ply chain plan­ning solu­tion that opti­mizes pro­duc­tion resources, mean­while reduc­ing costs, improv­ing per­for­mance and increas­ing sales:

• Improve sched­uler deci­sion-mak­ing with more accu­rate and reli­able pro­duc­tion planning
• Opti­miz­ing sup­ply chain efficiency
• Make on-the-fly adjust­ments to ensure pro­duc­tion sched­ules are opti­mized for effi­cient flow and min­i­mal downtime

Discover Production Scheduler software features 

Synchronize your production operations with precision

Man­u­fac­tur­ers can simul­ta­ne­ous­ly plan and syn­chro­nize oper­a­tions on all pro­duc­tion lines, includ­ing interdependencies:

• In this way, they reduce down­time linked to con­fig­u­ra­tion and changeovers.

This type of agile pro­duc­tion plan­ning, whether just-in-time or as-when-pos­si­ble, offers numer­ous benefits. 

In par­tic­u­lar, the Pro­duc­tion Sched­uler mod­ule man­ages recipes, co-prod­ucts and yield losses. 

It also man­ages vat and tank con­straints to obtain the opti­mum flow of mate­ri­als and prod­ucts.

These include :

• vari­able flow rates, 
• fer­men­ta­tion and mat­u­ra­tion constraints, 
• stor­age restrictions, 
• prod­uct-spe­cif­ic fil­tra­tion and fill­ing con­straints, and float­ing bot­tle­necks.

The sys­tem con­sid­ers shelf life, over­lap­ping process­es and Clean­ing In Place (CIP).

React to unexpected events with a dynamic dashboard and indicators

The Gantt chart used for visu­al sched­ul­ing is dynam­ic.

In fact, it adjusts when last-minute changes need to be made. Par­tic­u­lar­ly when demand varies, pri­or­i­ties change, cir­cum­stances call for changes. 

Theintu­itive inter­face enables sched­ulers to judge the impact of a change at a glance. They can then take the nec­es­sary action to achieve their objectives. 

This makes replan­ning, mod­i­fy­ing and real­lo­cat­ing resources child’s play.

What’s more, all avail­able indi­ca­tors are also dynam­ic.

They mea­sure:

• per­for­mance,
• cycle times,
• as well as changeover, prepa­ra­tion, main­te­nance and, of course, pro­duc­tion times.

Native auto­mat­ic sys­tem opti­miza­tion tech­niques boost sys­tem performance. 

A word from the integrator

Optimized planning

Infor Pro­duc­tion Sched­ulerbrings a high degree of agili­ty to opti­mized plan­ning of pro­duc­tion oper­a­tions, with ease of adap­ta­tion to the spe­cif­ic con­straints of batch process industries. 

Opti­mal con­sid­er­a­tion of depen­den­cies between oper­a­tions, pro­cess­ing times, resource require­ments and capac­i­ty con­straints to gen­er­ate effi­cient, opti­mized pro­duc­tion schedules. 

In addi­tion, Infor Pro­duc­tion Sched­ulerresource opti­miza­tion improves the use of avail­able resources (equip­ment, machines, per­son­nel, raw mate­ri­als, etc.). The soft­ware takes into account resource avail­abil­i­ty sched­ules and pri­or­i­ties to opti­mize resource allo­ca­tion and improve over­all pro­duc­tion efficiency.

Recipe and formula management 

Pro­duc­tion Sched­uler is a sched­ul­ing tool devel­oped with the help of beer brew­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers. As a result, the soft­ware per­fect­ly man­ages recipes and for­mu­las spe­cif­ic to the batch process industries. 

It sup­ports the def­i­n­i­tion and man­age­ment of recipes, for­mu­las, ingre­di­ents, quan­ti­ties, process steps, pro­cess­ing times, tem­per­a­tures and more. This facil­i­tates the plan­ning and exe­cu­tion of batch-spe­cif­ic pro­duc­tion operations.

Return on investment

Infor Pro­duc­tion Sched­uler frees plan­ners from Excel-based sched­ul­ing. Indeed, spread­sheet con­straints are a source of many errors, and lim­it pro­duc­tion plan­ning, espe­cial­ly when re-plan­ning after unfore­seen events or changes in sales priorities.

Pro­duc­tion Sched­uler makes it easy to track key per­for­mance indi­ca­tors (KPIs) to assess return on invest­ment, includ­ing :

• Order lead time,
• Non-pro­duc­tive machine downtime,
• On-time deliv­er­ies or order sat­is­fac­tion rate (OTIF),
• The use of resources, whether machines or operators,
• Reduc­ing inven­to­ry costs.

Data and han­dling:

• bet­ter data quality, 
• sim­pli­fied data collection, 
• the abil­i­ty to com­pare results using simulations, 
• as well as ease of use for the sched­uler and his colleagues.

Benefits of implementing Production Scheduler

Reduce your production costs 

Through capac­i­ty opti­miza­tion and con­straint-based log­ic, Pro­duc­tion Sched­uler opti­mizes the use of your pro­duc­tion resources and facil­i­tates the flow of prod­ucts between them. 

The sched­ul­ing engine bal­ances pro­duc­tion loads by align­ing with resource capac­i­ties and lim­it­ing machine over- and under-uti­liza­tion, while min­i­miz­ing the use of raw mate­ri­als, semi-fin­ished prod­ucts and commodities.

Improve performance and customer satisfaction

In addi­tion to reduc­ing costs through bet­ter plan­ning, the sched­ul­ing mod­ule enables :

• track the sta­tus of pro­duc­tion orders, 
• con­trol their progress, 
• and vis­i­bil­i­ty on pro­duc­tion lead times.

Pro­duc­tion Sched­uler enables you to effi­cient­ly plan, pri­or­i­tize and sequence pro­duc­tion orders to meet cus­tomer requirements.

Exten­sive report­ing and per­for­mance analy­sis dash­boards make it easy to mon­i­tor and iden­ti­fy areas for improvement.

Indi­ca­tors include pro­duc­tion effi­cien­cy, resource uti­liza­tion and cycle times.

Gain visibility and collaboration for optimal financial performance

ThePro­duc­tion Sched­uler inter­face enables sched­ulers, inter­nal and exter­nal staff to mon­i­tor pro­duc­tion schedules. 

Every­thing is vis­i­ble from the Gantt chart with detailed planning: 

• lots,
• pro­duc­tion stages, 
• spe­cial pro­duc­tion orders.

Each user can set up his or her own Gantt to focus on the part of the process for which he or she is respon­si­ble, while retain­ing the same infor­ma­tion as oth­er users. 

Thanks to this shar­ing of infor­ma­tion and vis­i­bil­i­ty, deci­sions can be made to opti­mize mar­gins while reduc­ing losses.

In addi­tion, the tool enables live mon­i­tor­ing of pro­duc­tion sta­tus, iden­ti­fy­ing bot­tle­necks and inter­ven­ing in good time to main­tain pro­duc­tion efficiency.

Final­ly,Pro­duc­tion Sched­uler inte­grates pro­duc­tion fore­cast­ing capa­bil­i­ties to pre­dict future demand and plan pro­duc­tion accordingly. 

It helps com­pa­nies to proac­tive­ly adjust pro­duc­tion sched­ules to meet antic­i­pat­ed fluc­tu­a­tions in demand.

Integrate Production Scheduler into your company’s IT ecosystem

Native­ly con­nect­ed to Cloud­suite SCP, Pro­duc­tion Sched­uler inte­grates eas­i­ly with exist­ing soft­ware, includ­ing :

• ERP - Enter­prise Resource Plan­ning — solu­tions on the market 
• and IT sys­tems such as MES (Man­u­fac­tur­ing Exe­cu­tion Systems).

This data exchange ensures the syn­chro­niza­tion of pro­duc­tion sched­ules and stock management.

MRP sup­plies pro­duc­tion orders to the sched­ul­ing tool accord­ing to the avail­abil­i­ty of mate­ri­als, which then cre­ates the sched­ule with the autho­rized bills of mate­ri­als, inven­to­ry lev­els, lead times and pro­duc­tion schedules.

This inte­gra­tion facil­i­tates the exchange of infor­ma­tion between dif­fer­ent com­pa­ny depart­ments, such as pro­duc­tion plan­ning, inven­to­ry man­age­ment, order man­age­ment and human resources management.

Infor’s benefits in figures 

Infor and the man­u­fac­tur­ers who use Pro­duc­tion Sched­uler have observed the fol­low­ing improvements:

• Increase on-time deliv­ery by up to 5%.
• Reduces time lost due to pro­duc­tion changeovers by up to 30%.
• Reduces cycle times by more than 20%.
• Reduces pro­duc­tion costs by up to 10%.
• Capac­i­ty uti­liza­tion and through­put increased by 10% to 40%.

Pro­duc­tion Sched­uler sig­nif­i­cant­ly improves per­for­mance and sup­ports rev­enue growth. 

Com­bined with the mod­ules in the SCP suite, Pro­duc­tion Sched­uler makes all the dif­fer­ence to your competitors.