Scenario Planning and Optimization in Integrated Business Planning Webinar

By utilizing a well-executed Integrated Business Planning process (IBP), companies can achieve cross-functional alignment, optimize costs and improve customer satisfaction. The need for both strategic and tactical agility is manifested in the ability to anticipate changes in demand and supply conditions, investigate ad-hoc scenarios and generate executable plans.

Integrated Business Planning process has extended the Sales & Operations Planning process and has now been the best practice in the industry. The process is led by senior management and aims to align company plans every month to allocate the critical resources - people, equipment, inventory, materials, time and money - to most effectively satisfy your customers, in a profitable way.

IBP is a complex process and unfortunately, many companies are trying to run it manually using spreadsheets with the help of their ERP or SCM software. To make this manual process practical, the companies does a lot of aggregation and abstraction and try to focus more on bottleneck resolution rather than optimization. The process also does not allow significant what-if-analysis (scenario planning).

There is actually a way to significantly automate and improve the IBP process with focus on speed, optimization and multiple scenario analysis : Mathematical optimization. This method is available since early 1940s but it was mostly a luxury for significantly large companies until recently. Now with the advances in computer technology and advanced planning and scheduling technologies, mathematical optimization can be applied to IBP process.

In the Scenario Planning and Optimization in Integrated Business Planning (IBP) webinar to discover how companies like ASML, Vestel and Trakya Cam are utilizing ICRON Advanced Planning and Scheduling to evaluate multiple scenarios, rapidly generate optimized plans and compare financial and operational KPIs to make informed decisions in their S&OP/IBP processes.

Click here or image below to access the webinar recording : IBP Webinar video.

Webinar is conducted by the Chief Technology Officer of ICRON Technologies, Zeki Caner Taşkın. Mr. Taşkın joined ICRON in 2001 and specializes on large-scale optimization methods and software. He was named the recipient of the 2010 Pritsker Doctoral Dissertation Award given by the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) and his research has appeared in many leading Operations Research journals. Caner received his Ph.D. from the University of Florida and as an academic he teaches in the Industrial Engineering department of Bogazici University.

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 Planning and Scheduling for Electronics Manufacturing : Vestel Case

Manufacturing in 21st century is a complex task. It is mostly Make-to-order and the production is highly capital-intensive. The high product mix combined with large number of components or manufacturing tasks makes it already a big challenge to plan but because there is little to no stock to shield manufacturing from changes in demand, frequent schedule changes creates extra complexity.

Most manufacturing companies have ERP and Supply Chain Management systems but these do not help a lot. The logic in these systems are developed and matured in 1980s and they are transactional systems, developed for make-to-stock, low product-mix, high order volume manufacturing.

Since ERP systems are not helping a lot, most planners use spreadsheets to create a more executable and feasible plan. But this manual process is cumbersome, time consuming, slow, inflexible and error prone. It does not also allow to deploy optimization (a supply chain which is not optimized is usually 15% - 20% more costly to operate). Excel is free, readily available but Excel based planning is costly.

But there is a solution which is much superior when it comes to planning : Advanced Planning and Scheduling. Advanced Planning and Scheduling is a software platform which deploys advanced mathematical algorithms or logic to perform optimization, and/or simulation on finite capacity scheduling, sourcing, capital planning, resource planning, forecasting, demand planning and others. This platform can :

• reduce planning / scheduling cycle by 70 – 90% 
• shift the organization from reactive to proactive planning
• create a centralized planning / scheduling for all (SVOT)
• reduce overtime, inventory costs, WIP times, setup times
• increase customer service level and revenue

Electronics manufacturers can benefit from an APS platform tremendously. There are some manufacturers deploying this technology for years. One such company is Vestel Group.

Advanced Planning and Scheduling plarform

Vestel Group is comprised of 24 companies operating in manufacturing, software and  technology development, mareting, and distribution fields in the consumer electronics,  household appliances, mobile technologies, LED lighting, and defense industries.  Vestel exports its products to 149 countries under the leading Japanese and European  brands. 

Vestel uses a highly flexible, integrated, and automated S&OP process developed on ICRON Advanced Planning and Scheduling solution. ICRON’s solution – which was developed, tested, integrated with Vestel’s existing ERP system – was implemented over the course of six months and became immediately fully operational.

You can read how Vestel uses Advanced Planning and Scheduling for different levels of planning such as Sales & Operations Planning, Capacity Planning and detailed scheduling here : Vestel Advanced Planning and Scheduling Case Study.

Optimization and Scenario Based Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) for Manufacturing Webinar

Although the computer technology as well as the available advanced planning and scheduling platforms has matured to a level to provide advanced optimization based Sales and Operations Planning for many manufacturing facilities within a very reasonable budget, most companies still deploy old school, cumbersome and very slow S&OP processes.

In this webinar, Associate Professor Caner Taşkın from Bogazici University (VP of Technology in ICRON Technologies) presents how mathematical optimization is accessible for Sales & Operations Planning thanks to advances in computer technology and proven optimization engines like ICRON. He also presents some real life examples of optimization and scenario based S&OP.

Mr. Taşkın starts with an introduction to S&OP and then details how modern S&OP process should be. Later in the webinar, he gives case studies and sample implementations of Optimization and Scenario Based Sales & Operations Planning using ICRON Technologies.

Optimization and Scenario Based Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) for Manufacturing Webinar 

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. 
www.icrontech.com