A system to improve on-time customer delivery and operational efficiency.
DecisionBrain was tasked with creating a system that provides a consistent, systematic approach to production planning and scheduling according to the business needs. Overall the project aimed at optimizing production planning across all work centers to improve operational KPIs. The solution consisted of developing two optimization engines, one for Global Planning and one for Scheduling.
Global Planning Engine: This engine has visibility over all work centers and all work orders and coordinates the overall plan. Each work center does not only have a local optimization objective (such as maximize throughput, minimize changeover), but also follows a global orchestrated guidance, which leads to:
Balanced upstream product choice to ensure downstream process efficiency
Guaranteed feasibility respecting all constraints
Increased on-time delivery
Balanced production of easy and difficult products
Minimized outsourced quantity
Reduced WIP
Scheduling Engine: This engine is tasked to optimize production KPIs while respecting all constraints. With our solution:
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Good quality production plan obtained in a few minutes (even for large work centers with 80+ machines)
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User-friendly interactive Gantt to easily modify the plan
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Possibilities to perform simulations based on different criteria and priorities
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Improved production efficiency
Besides optimized production plans and schedules, the system delivers standardized production-related data, automated production time computation and real-time feasibility checking. Planners benefit from the system transparency and efficiency as well as from the collaborative environment that the solution enables. Additionally, a standardized and consistent system enables anyone to view and check the production plan without the need of several years’ experience.
The project is in its final phase of implementation and has provided strong preliminary results.