Next Generation Advanced Planning and Scheduling for Manufacturing Webinar

Production Planning and Scheduling in modern manufacturing environment has become quite complex. But unfortunately many ERP solutions, even in their production planning and scheduling modules, do not provide a satisfactory mechanism to handle the complexity of the problem. These ERP, MRP or MPS mechanisms are transactional and designed for mass production facilities of past with low product mix, generous inventory sizes and relatively simple supply chain networks.

Since the complexity is not addressed by the systems in hand, most planners rely on a cumbersome, time-consuming, error-prone and manual process run on many Excel files. But this does not need to be the case and there is a superior and highly successful process out there : Advanced Planning and Scheduling.

Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) is a software platform which deploys advanced mathematical algorithms or logic to perform optimization and/or and/or simulation on finite capacity scheduling, sourcing, capital planning, resource planning, forecasting, demand planning and others.

In this webinar, you will have a chance to see a modern Advanced Planning and Scheduling Platform, ICRON, in action. The webinar first introduces APS and why it is needed. Then, it lists some of the characteristics (or musts) of a next generation Advanced Planning and Scheduling platform for manufacturing. Later you will see a demo of the application (the specific domain selected in this demo is paper production planning and scheduling but the concept can also be applied to broader process manufacturing).

The demo displays the capabilities of ICRON APS in 3 levels of planning : Tactical Planning, Operational Planning and Dispatching. The corresponding modules of the application in the demo are ICRON S&OP, ICRON Capacity Planner and ICRON Detailed Scheduler.

The next webinar is on July 17th 2017 on below time :

Singapore / Malaysia / Hong Kong / Taiwan / Philippines                : 09:00 – 10:00 AM
Thailand / Indonesia / Vietnam                                                          : 08:00 – 09:00 AM

You can use this link to register : Next Generation Advanced Planning and Scheduling for Manufacturing Webinar Registration

You can watch an old webinar below.

Advanced Aero MRO Planning and Scheduling

The global aviation fleet is set to grow steadily over the coming decade, with global CAGR at 3.4%, and areas such as Asia-Pacific, seeing CAGR of 4.2%. This will significantly increase the demand for aircraft Maintenance Repair and Overhaul in the following years.

Increased demand will introduce new competitive forces and an increasingly demanding customer base. MRO companies will respond by capacity increase, overtime or hardware technology updates to accommodate the increase but this wont be enough or even if it would be enough the constraints on resources and the sheer cost of increasing capacity will be prohibitive.

A more intelligent way to handle the growth will be using game changer IT Technologies. Using advanced data analytics, predictive maintenance, data visualization and algorithmic supply chain planning and scheduling will enable companies to significantly increase the productivity and predictability of their MRO operations.

You may have heard the first 3 IT Technologies a lot recently but the last one, algorithmic supply chain planning and scheduling, is used in classical manufacturing for decades. This technology is based on Advanced Planning and Scheduling and automates and optimizes the generation of plans and schedules for supply chain and repair operations.

In MRO business, planning and scheduling is very complex. It requires planning and scheduling of thousands or tens of thousands of repair operations w.r.t tight physical resources, regulations, certifications, spare parts, etc. The environment is also very unpredictable since there are frequent rescheduling due to post strip/inspection repair needs, unplanned Aircraft On Ground (AOG) repairs and part cannibalization, machine breakdowns, spare part unavailability's, certified personnel absence, etc. Moreover, MRO plan, shop floor execution data and ERP data are not blended and visualized so the shop floor is a black box.

Singapore Aero Engine Services Limited (SAESL) uses Advanced MRO Planning and Scheduling
for its repair operations since 2007.

Algorithmic MRO planning and scheduling applications, such as ICRON Advanced MRO Planning solution, introduces 3 key concepts : Finite Capacity Planning and Optimization, High Performance, Automated Planning and Web Based Data Distribution and Visualization. Algorithmic optimization modeling introduced by ICRON can overcome significant MRO planning problems.

ICRON Aero MRO Planning and Scheduling is implemented in some large MRO facilities like Singapore Aero Engine Services Limited (SAESL) and Singapore Airlines Engineering Company. You can find the case study for SAESL here : ICRON SAESL Case Study.

Finite Capacity Planning allows better planning and sequencing w.r.t all your constraints will produce better and more realistic results. With finite capacity planning, you know any bottle neck and lateness due to these bottlenecks so you can take action.

MRO ERP systems (like SAP) assumes infinite capacity when detailed scheduling. This will mask a lot of lateness until it is too late. This is costly in MRO. Finite capacity planning allows you to see the results of capacity problems immediately. This allows you to take actions. It also helps you to answer repair history, current status and future schedule of the component in repair shops.

Optimization ensures the generated plan is the best possible one towards achieving your goals such as :

• Reduced Turn Around Times
• Reduced Overtime costs
• Reduced Total Setup times
• Reduced # of late jobs
• Increased customer satisfaction / revenue
• Increased facility productivity
• Increased workload balance on technicians

ICRON Technologies Advanced Planning, Scheduling and Optimization in Singapore

ICRON Technologies B.V., a Netherlands based Advanced Planning, Scheduling and Optimization solution provider is setting up an office in Singapore. ICRON Technologies Asia Pacific will serve South East Asia and East Asia markets to help companies to solve their planning, scheduling, supply chain network optimization, demand planning and S&OP problems.

ICRON Technologies has more than 20 years of experience in Advanced Planning, Scheduling and Optimization and their solutions are used in some well established companies like ASML, Vestel, LG, Singapore Airlines, Rolls Royce, Bridgestone, Perfetti van Melle, etc. The company builts these solutions on their Advanced Planning and Scheduling engine and is known for fast implementation times hovering around 3 months. Their product family includes :

- ICRON Advanced Planning and Scheduling (ICRON APS) - Enterprise level finite capacity planning and scheduling solution offering offers a clear, cost-effective migration path to full-function supply chain optimization.

- ICRON Capacity Planning (ICRON CP) - Enterprise level supply chain network optimization solution providing strategic and tactical (long-term) planning of supply chain network including customers, production facilities, distribution centers, warehouses and transportation routes.

- ICRON Demand Planning (ICRON DP) - With ICRON DP, companies can accurately model their multiple forecasting inputs creating their unique forecasting algorithms and methodologies to drive forecast improvement across all types of products (fast- and slow-moving, lumpy, short life cycle, trending, steady, highly seasonal, causal driven) on different levels across your value chain. It introduces demand optimization to your organization by applying mathematical optimization techniques to identify the best combination of price and promotion to achieve desired sales, gross margin, inventory or market share objectives.

ICRON Advanced Planning and Scheduling system.

- ICRON Sales and Operations Planning (ICRON S & OP) - ICRON S&OP helps companies keep demand and supply in balance and achieve synchronization among different functions in the organization by rapidly generating high-quality plans and enabling ad-hoc scenario analysis.

About ICRON Technologies

Founded in 1992, ICRON Technologies Inc. is a leading developer of Advanced Planning, Scheduling (APS) and Optimization solutions for manufacturing, distribution, MRO and Services organizations. Once deployed it allows large enterprise companies to improve their supply chain operations by better streamlining inventory keeping, production (constraints), and sourcing of material including lead time with forecasted demand. More than 70 customers used the software today including ASML, Singapore Airlines, Rolls Royce, Bridgestone, DHL, Ford, Rohm & Haas, and others. The company is headquartered in Amsterdam with R&D in Istanbul and an office in Singapore. 

Advanced MRO Planning and Scheduling Webinar

ICRON Technologies, a leading developer of Advanced Planning and Scheduling solutions since 1992, has been in Aerospace MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) optimization for more than a decade and shares its experience in this area in this webinar below.

In this webinar, you will discover how a next generation MRO planning and scheduling solution can improve your MRO activities and KPIs such as TRT times, overtime and productivity.

See below for a detailed description of the topic :


Modern facilities are text book cases of complex production environments :

• 100% Make-to-order
• Capital-intensive production processes
• High product mix, large number of components or production tasks
• frequent schedule changes

Planning and scheduling of thousands or tens of thousands of repair operations w.r.t tight physical resources, regulations, certifications, spare parts, etc. in this environment is a very difficult job. Frequent rescheduling due to post strip/inspection repair needs, unplanned Aircraft On Ground (AOG) repairs and part cannibalization, machine breakdowns, spare part unavailability's, certified personnel absence, etc. also makes planning more complex. More over, MRO plan, shop floor execution data and ERP data are not blended and visualized so the shop floor is a black box so the environment is pretty much a black box.

Current ERP systems also do not help a lot when it comes to planning and scheduling. Most ERPs in MRO are originally developed for mass production, old fashion manufacturing. They assume capacity problems are solved in advance and they plan as if the environment has infinite capacity.

One of ICRON's biggest feature is Finite Capacity Planning and Optimization. Better planning and sequencing w.r.t all your constraints will produce better and more realistic results. With finite capacity planning, ICRON ensures that you know any bottle neck and lateness due to these bottlenecks so you can take action.

About ICRON Technologies