Siemens Opcenter APS

Siemens Opcenter APS Products

Siemens Advanced Planning and Scheduling is a solution for constraint-based production planning and shop floor scheduling. It enables manufacturers to respond quickly and intelligently to unexpected changes, while satisfying customer demands with shorter lead-times.

Advanced Planning and Scheduling improves the synchronization of manufacturing processes and provides greater visibility to increase utilization and on-time delivery while reducing inventory levels and waste. Its advanced math enables manufacturers to quickly analyze and calculate achievable production schedules while considering multiple constraints and business rules. Planners can generate and evaluate what-if scenarios to achieve the best results.

Examples of judgemental forecasting methods include:
  • Improvement in delivery performance and productivity
  • Cycle time reduction- reduces WIP that slows down production
  • Reduction in raw materials inventory- Synchronize purchasing with an achievable schedule
  • Improvement in customer service- Increase on- time deliveries

Siemens Opcenter - Advanced Planning

Siemens Opcenter Advanced Planning software is a strategic decision tool designed to aid you in long and mid-term planning. It considers forecast and long-term orders, supports decision making about feasibility and affects the general direction of productions.

Advanced planning software supports major production capacity decisions surrounding extending the work force, resource capacity, and factories. It helps you determine what and how much to make, where and when to make it, and exactly what materials and resources are required.

Planning can be executed in finite or infinite capacity mode and planning time periods can be days, weeks, months, or a combination of all three. If used together with our advanced scheduling system, detailed production schedule information can be sent back to the planning system to override planned volume with scheduled volume. Master Production Schedule (MPS) can then be re-calculated using production schedule as the base for new results.

Siemens Opcenter Planning is made up of powerful features that allow you to build a custom solution. Read more about these features below.

The planning Bill of Materials (BOM) can be exploded, and then the production plan for lower level items is calculated in the same way. Based on the MOM explosion and the production plan, proposed material purchase requirements can be exported to an ERP system or Excel for action.

In a make-to-order environment, stock levels of finished and intermediate items will not be part of the key process parameters. But there will still be the need to evaluate the effects of future demand changes on the manufacturing process. When a change in demand occurs, whether in terms of quantity or delivery dates, there is a need to be able to quickly assess if it is possible to meet the new requirements.

Once an initial Master Production Schedule (MPS) has been created, data can be displayed as stock profile graphs and capacity usage graphs. The MPS can be changed by simply clicking and dragging a point on the stock or capacity graphs, and the production of a particular item can be moved from one planning period to another. Any changes made will be reflected in all the linked plot and grid windows.

Generate accurate and achievable master production schedules (MPS) considering rough cut capacity, pack forward figures, target days of stock cover, manufacturing preferences, minimum and maximum re-order quantities, re-order multiples and product shelf life. Production capacity can be specified as a quantity, duration or weight. By using the Preactor calendar system capacity, production capacity can be varied over time. The capacity available then limits the production volume created in each period.

Siemens Opcenter- Advanced Scheduling

Advanced Scheduling software is an interactive, multi-constraint scheduling system. Availability of resources and additional constraints, such as tooling and materials, are all taken into consideration during scheduling to ensure an accurate model of your environment. Orders can be scheduled quickly using intelligent built-in rules, and the planner also can manually interact with the schedule to make changes based on their experience or new information.

Advanced Scheduling provides decision-making support for overtime, order prioritization, split production batches, due date negotiation and order processing.

Advanced Scheduling is made up of powerful features that allow you to build a custom solution. Read more about these features below.

Model advanced resource constraints, such as rules about concurrent rule usage, and advanced inter-operation constraints including limits on the time between operations and how much operation times can be extended.

Define additional schedule optimization rules to deal with problems such as minimizing changeover times, preferred sequencing and campaigning. Composite rules can be built with the SIEMENS OPCENTER Preactor workflow tool.

Gives access to the full flexibility possible. Database schema and constraint model can be altered as required, including adding tables and fields. Create custom scheduling rules to solve specific scheduling problems and custom data manipulation tools for use with the workflow engine.

Create order based schedules and apply a ranking or weighting in order to prioritize orders. The software schedules based on the availability of resources, additional constraints and materials required for the order. Create schedules taking in to account different operation run speeds on different resources, use sequence dependent changeover times based on operation attributes, and allow overlaps and slack time between operations.

Implement custom rules about how materials are consumed to ensure that sub-assemblies and raw materials are consumed according to business rules. When allocating materials, the system filters and ranks data to allow quality-related or customer-specific material usage constraints to be accounted for.

Visualize the assembly process from raw materials through to finished goods and sales orders in the Material Explorer. This shows a graphical view of the material dependencies as well as plots of stock levels over time. See where shortages will occur and choose to keep them as a constraint, or ignore them.

Allows interaction with the schedule, but changes cannot be saved. Viewers can be used in the sales office to track the progress of orders and carry out order inquiries against a read-only copy of the published schedule. Management can use them to compare actual times with scheduled completion times to assess performance of the production process. Viewers can be used on a shop floor PC to provide the cell supervisor or machine operator with up-to-the-minute work-to-lists generated by the scheduling system.

SIEMENS OPCENTER PREACTOR AS STANDARD

SIEMENS OPCENTER Preactor AS Standard uses order based scheduling to which the user can apply a ranking or weighting in order to prioritise the orders. It schedules based on availability of resources, additional constraints and the materials required for the order. During the scheduling process SIEMENS OPCENTER Preactor AS Standard can take in to account different operation run speeds on different resources, use sequence dependent changeover times based on operation attributes and allow overlaps and slack time between operations.


Product Features

   Multi-constraint scheduling (primary, secondary and materials)

   Material consumption at the order level

   Static FIFO pegging rule

   In software table and field renaming

   In software grid view and dialog design

   Full PIO functionality

   PESP with Custom Actions to run external code

   Mid batch update (display only)

   Attribute-based simple setup times

   Flexible Order Routing

   ‘Order at a Time’ scheduling (including weighting rule)

   12 re-nameable spare fields for attributes

   Transfer batching and Slack Times

SIEMENS OPCENTER PREACTOR AS PROFESSIONAL

SIEMENS OPCENTER Preactor AS Professional has a number of additional schedule optimization rules to deal with problems such as minimizing changeover times, preferred sequencing and campaigning. Composite rules can also be built with SIEMENS OPCENTER Preactor’s workflow tool.

At SIEMENS OPCENTER Preactor AS Professional level, the user is also able to implement customer specific rules about how materials are consumed and visualize their assembly process from raw materials through to finished goods and sales orders in the Material Explorer. This shows a graphical view of the material dependencies as well as plots of stock levels over time. The user can see where shortages will occur and choose to keep them as a constraint or ignore them.

In addition to this SIEMENS OPCENTER Preactor AS professional can model advanced resource constraints, such as rules about concurrent rule usage, and advanced inter-operation constraints including limits on the time between operations and how much operation times can be extended by.


Product Features

   Multi-constraint scheduling (primary, secondary and materials)

   Material consumption at order level

   Static FIFO pegging rule

   In software table and field renaming

   In software grid view and dialog design

   Full PIO functionality

   PESP with Custom Actions to run external code

   Mid batch update (display only)

   Attribute-based simple setup times

   Flexible Order Routing

   ‘Order at a Time’ scheduling (including weighting rule)

   20 re-nameable spare fields for attributes

   Multi-constraint scheduling (primary, secondary and materials)

   Material consumption at the order level

   Static FIFO pegging rule

   In software table and field renaming

   In software grid view and dialog design

   Full PIO functionality

   PESP with Custom Actions to run external code

   Mid batch update (display only)

   Attribute based simple setup times

   Flexible Order Routing

   ‘Order at a Time’ scheduling (including weighting rule)

   Transfer batching and Slack Times

SIEMENS OPCENTER PREACTOR AS ULTIMATE

SIEMENS OPCENTER Preactor AS Ultimate includes a developer licence (SIEMENS OPCENTER Preactor Ultimate Access) which gives access to the full flexibility that is possible with a SIEMENS OPCENTER Preactor system. The database schema can be altered as required, including adding tables and fields, and via the SIT Preactor programming interfaces it is possible to create custom scheduling rules to solve specific scheduling problems and create custom data manipulation tools for use with the SIT Preactor workflow engine.

As the SIEMENS OPCENTER Preactor Ultimate Access licence is a one-off purchase for a company, included in the price of the first SIEMENS OPCENTER Preactor Ultimate level system, this enables a cost effective multi-licencing program for rolling out SIEMENS OPCENTER Preactor systems across multiple sites or scheduling environments.


Product Features

   Multi-constraint scheduling (primary, secondary and materials)

   Material consumption at order level

   Static FIFO pegging rule

   In software table and field renaming

   In software grid view and dialog design

   Full PIO functionality

   PESP with Custom Actions to run external code

   Mid batch update (display only)

   Attribute based simple setup times

   Flexible Order Routing

   ‘Order at a Time’ scheduling (including weighting rule)

   Unlimited re-nameable spare fields for attributes

   Transfer batching and Slack Times

   Mid batch update with recalculation

   Full Sequence dependent attribute based setup times

   A set of standard APS rules (preferred Sequence included)

   APS PESP actions for multi-pass rules

   Material consumption and production at the operation level

   Custom pegging rules

   Advanced resource constraints (Match Field and Match Required)

   Advanced operation constraints (Max time before next op, End offset, Inter-operation intervals)

   Exclude resources based on Attribute

   Preactor Object API

   Open Planning Board API – (custom scheduling rules)

   Table and Menu definition editing

SIEMENS OPCENTER PREACTOR AS ULTIMATE VIEWERS

The SIEMENS OPCENTER Preactor AS Ultimate Viewer is a system designed to be linked to a SIEMENS OPCENTER Preactor AS Ultimate schedule. A SIEMENS OPCENTER Preactor AS Viewer system allows interaction with the schedule but the changes cannot be saved.

Viewers can be used in the sales office to track the progress of orders and carry out order enquiries against a read only copy of the published schedule. Management can use them to compare actual times with scheduled completion times to assess the performance of the production process. Viewers can also be used on a shop floor PC to provide the cell supervisor or machine operator with up to the minute work-to-lists generated by the scheduling system.

PRODUCT FEATURE TABLE

Feature Standard Professional Ultimate
‘Order at a Time’ scheduling
In software table and field renaming
In software grid view and dialog design
Mid batch update (display only)
Attribute based simple setup times
Flexible Order Routing
File Based Export
File Based Import
Customizable spare fields 12 20
Multi-constraint scheduling (primary, secondary and materials)
Material consumption at order level
FIFO material linking rule
ADO .Net Data Source Import
Preactor Workflow tool (PESP) with Custom Actions to run external code
Transfer batching and Slack Times
Order Enquiry
Mid batch update with recalculation
Full Sequence dependent attribute based setup times
A set of standard advanced planning rules
Preactor workflow (PESP) Scheduling actions for multi-pass rules
Material consumption and production at operation level
Custom material linking rules
Material Explorer for material data visualization
Advanced resource constraints to model complex concurrent resource usage
Advanced operation constraints for complex inter-operation relationships
Exclude invalid resources based on attribute
Preactor Object API for data manipulation
Open Planning Board API for custom scheduling rules
Database schema and menu structure editing
All Preactor scheduling features and classifications