Simulation in PP/DS vs. PlanetTogether

January 20, 2011

What This Article Covers Simulation in PP/DS and why it is onerous. PlanetTogether’s approach to simulation. Background Simulation is extremely onerous in PP/DS. It means that very few companies actually use PP/DS for any type of simulation. I have been writing on this for several years, yet at every account I work on, I tend [...]

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Resource Adjustment, Maintenance and Flexibility in PP/DS vs. PlanetTogether

January 20, 2011

What This Article Covers How flexible is PP/DS? How flexible is PlanetTogether? Background Process manufacturing scheduling is one of the most challenging supply chain problems. The reasons for are because of the variability, and non-sequential nature of the required operations. For reasons that are not entirely clear, the majority of scheduling applications have been designed [...]

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Overlapping Operations in PP/DS vs PlanetTogether

January 20, 2011

What This Article Covers Process scheduling requirements. Scheduling applications which are limited to FS and SS relationships. Background A major requirement in process scheduling is overlapping or lagging scheduling capabilities. This is because operations are not simply scheduled one after another, nor are concurrent operations scheduled to begin at the same time. Overlapping operations determine [...]

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Mismatches with PP/DS for Process Industry Manufacturing

January 19, 2011

What This Article Covers The problem clients will face with PP/DS for scheduling. Understanding the limitations of PP/DS Specific mismatch examples. Background Upon arriving at one client I observed significant mis-matches between the PP/DS design and the process requirements and manufacturing environment. Any company which attempts to use PP/DS for process industry manufacturing will run [...]

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Optimizer Comparison between PP/DS and PlanetTogether

January 19, 2011

What This Article Covers PlanetTogether an optimization rules for customizing he optimizer. How weights are used in the optimizer. Costs versus duration optimization. Background It is interesting to find a highly customizable optimization engine and to compare it against the opaque cost optimization applications I have used in the past. Consistent with this series on [...]

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The PP/DS User Interface vs. PlanetTogether

January 19, 2011

What This Article Covers PlanetTogether an optimization rules for customizing he optimizer. How weights are used in the optimizer. Costs versus duration optimization. Background The PP/DS Detailed Production Scheduling Board is a very limited tool. The limited ability to work within the space of the jobs is similar to the limitations in the DP interface [...]

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Changeover Planning in SAP PP/DS vs. PlanetTogether

December 6, 2010

What This Article Covers The two different ways to plan setups in scheduling applications. The Setup Matrix in PP/DS. What is the Setup Matrix composed of? Setup Optimization in PlanetTogether. Cost optimization versus duration optimization for production scheduling. Background There are two basic ways to plan setups in scheduling applications. One way is to enter [...]

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Recommending PP/DS for Production Scheduling?

December 6, 2010

What This Article Covers Why PP/DS is recommended for some environments for which it is not a good fit. The approved solutions which fit for PP/DS from SAP. Who is continually recommending PP/DS for the wrong environments? 3rd party scheduling solutions Background SAP and large consulting firms from all over the world are giving companies bad [...]

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Production Scheduling Definition and History

December 5, 2010

What This Article Covers What is production scheduling? A historical perspective on its development. High Level Description In order to set the stage for this post, I will borrow a quote from a book on Scheduling by Michael L Pinedo. Scheduling is a decision-making process that is used on a regular basis in many manufacturing [...]

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