InSync release iPlanner 3.4!

InSync present new Food Solution at Next Level Food Chain Summit

San Francisco, CA – June 4, 2010 – InSync, Inc., announced today that it will present its Food and beverage solution at the Next Level Food Chain Summit in Phoenix, Arizona this week.

About Next Level Food Chain Summit

The Food Chain Summit, features the ideal peer-to-peer networking environment for Top Level Executives in Supply Chain, Distribution, Manufacturing and many other related fields within the food industry. Be a part of the Industries Must Attend Event featuring thought leaders from the world’s leading food manufacturers, discussing the key issues affecting the current and future growth of your business. For further information please visit http://www.nextlevelsummits.com

About InSync

iPlanner 3.3

What If Analysis

“What if” workbench: Added a single view to manage data, execute plans, diagnose plan results and view aggregated result (Multi Dimensional Analytics) to simplify and ease “what-if” analysis workflows.

Multi Tasking: Added ability to execute a plan on a separate thread and eliminating application restart.

Plan Reload: Added functionality to reload plans.

Support

Support for Windows 7 and Windows 2008.

Foundation

Progress Bar: Added progress bar indicating that iPlanner is starting.

.Net: Upgraded .net framework to version 3.5.

User Interface

On Time Flag: Added new “On Time” Field for demand records in the Material Registers.

Transaction Number visibility: Added ability to view order number in all plan order, pegging and material register screens.

Pegging Summary: Functionality to personalize the pegging navigation tree per user.

Integration

Plan Order Export: Added new “Transaction Number” field to the “plan Orders”.

Multiple Job Execution: Added ability to run multiple jobs in one command without data reload.

Clear Data: Added ability to clear targeted existing data before imports.

Heuristics vs. Linear Programming (LP): Why Heuristics are better for solving complex supply chain planning problems in a Tactical time Horizon?

The question: “Which is better; LP or Heuristics? Wouldn’t a LP solution yield the optimal plan whereas heuristics results come somewhat close?”.

We keep getting these questions. My answer is that in most short term planning situations, where plan results have direct impact to execution, Heuristics based solutions have far greater advantages over LP based solutions. Here are some of the advantages that I have seen:

Modeling Realistic constraints: Heuristics based algorithms offer much more flexibility in adding detailed constraints to the model. Although modeling such constraints is possible in LP, getting the results in a realistic time would be a challenge. Most solution vendors that provide LP based solutions make assumptions and simplify the problem. Consequently, the plan is no longer representative of the customer’s problems and business. One of the common simplifications is modeling discrete manufacturing as non-discrete manufacturing, because of the limitations of linear programming. Moreover, details and modeling of constraints like Campaign planning, WIP management, shipping calendars, are far from reach for a LP based solution.
Transitional Stability: Most LP based solutions start from a clean slate, but in most instances, such planning results causes a numbers of problems:
1. There is a lot of variability in the output. Huge variances from plan to plan in many instances, cause organizations to lose faith in the system
2. Interaction with other systems: Planning results should take input from other systems into consideration. This includes schedules created by scheduling systems/ MES, as well as manual modifications
Root Cause Analysis: LP is black box solution. It is difficult, if not impossible to tell the specific reasoning for a certain result. I have seen a number of instances where planners lose trust in the system because it is not easy to explain why the results are a certain way. Secondly, since the results cannot be explained in an easy manner, it is difficult to assign accountability to the plan results.
Performance: LP algorithms take significantly longer to run than heuristics based solutions. Hours compared to minutes. With the speed of a heuristics based solutions, planners have much more flexibility to run a number of “what-if” scenario analysis using varying parameters such as demand, supply, capacity, etc.
Business Workflows: Heuristic solutions enable a level of interactive planning that is not possible for a LP based solution. Workflows where users review the plan, freeze a certain part of the plan, perform quick reruns, etc are not a viable option in a LP based solution.

In conclusion, in the short horizon the key is not which solution yields a more optimal solution. Any plan is no longer perfect the moment it is generated, due to the continuously changing circumstances. It is more important, to go with a solution that helps you to proactively plan and change course with the changing conditions. To this, I contend that the solution needs to contain speed, integrated analytics and modeling flexibility.

So the question is, is there an instance where LP based solutions are better suited in supply chain planning? The answer to this question is yes. LP based solutions are generally suited for longer term planning where the objective is to determine major investments, product strategy, long term supplier contracts, Asset Optimization etc. This is the topic of discussion for another blog. Stay tuned.

iPlanner 3.2

User Interface

Step Priority: Added ability to view the manufacturing order “Priority” in the “Plan Order Operations view”.

Capacity Summary: Added horizontal scroll bar to the Capacity Summary grid view.

Date Range Filter: Added date range filter to the “Capacity Detailed Load Graphs” to control the visible area for usability.

Excel Add-In

Demand Management Bookmark: Added header to indicate the hierarchy aggregation and filter selection for a Bookmark.

Action Messages

Hard Pegging: Added ability to drill down to the final customer order from a specific action message.

Security

Enhanced user extension security to control write privileges to the record level.

Web Service

Custom reports: Added functionality to retrieve and view Custom Reports through web services.

User Extensions: Added functionality to fetch and updates data for User Extensions through web services.

Saba Fresh Cuts goes live with iPlanner

San Francisco, CA – Feb 12, 2010

Dole Europe’s Fresh Cut lettuce division went live with the iPlanner Advanced planning solution managing both production lines and procurement of raw materials.

About Saba Fresh Cuts

Saba Fresh Cuts produces Dole pre-cut lettuce. The products are distributed in chilled cabinets to the Swedish, Danish, Finnish and German markets. The production facility in Helsingborg is one of Europe’s most modern, and corresponds to today’s high demands of technology, quality, hygiene and food security. For more information, please visit http://www.saba.se

About InSync

iPlanner Live with first SaaS customer in North America

San Francisco, CA – November 10, 2009 – InSync, Inc., the leader in Advanced Planning (APS) solutions, announced today that the first SaaS customer, Sundia is Live on the iPlanner SaaS platform. The InSync “Implementation Methodology” enabled Sundia to design, configure, integrate, validate, train users, and successfully execute a global roll-out of the iPlanner platform in 50 days. “We’ve been impressed by how smoothly iPlanner has integrated with our existing accounting and ERP systems.” said Alex Auseklis, Vice President Finance.

About Sundia

Sundia Corporation is the fastest growing produce brand in North America. With a goal to promote increased consumption of fruit and vegetables, the Company is rapidly building its product line with innovative products. Sundia’s True Fruit product line is convenient, healthy, good-tasting and safe. To date, Sundia has sold over 25 million fruit cups in the US and Canada. Sundia leads the industry in innovation with its Organic and Lite fruit cups, launched in 2009.

Sundia’s fresh produce includes watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew and tomatoes. Sundia labels as much as 35% of these categories through partnership with growers, distributors, retailers, and consumer products companies. For further information please visit http://www.sundiafruit.com

About InSync

iPlanner 3.0

User Defined Extensions

Added Functionality to extend the data model to include user defined elements.

Ability to enforce referential and logical business relationships

View, create and maintain data in the iPlanner user interface

Security restrictions on viewing and editing

User Interface

Color coding by Status: Added Color coding of supply and demand records based on Order Status and Order Type.

Detail Capacity Load: Added a Single view of the detailed loads across planning horizon.

Gannt Chart: Broken down to include Queue time, Post Op time and Transit time.

Order Status Icons: Highlight Work in Progress (WIP) and Released Manufacturing Orders in the Pegging Summary view.

Export of Material Registers: Ability to Export (Excel, PDF, Text) and Print the Material Register view.

Transaction Identification: Added flag to identify if a planorder is a transaction.

Exceptions Management: Enhanced Exceptions to show the monetary impact of the exception violation (safety stock, stock out, etc) .

Navigation History: Capture screens visited within a session.

Localization

Added Swedish Language Support.

Action Messages

Added action message workbench to plan diagnosis to enable root cause and impact analysis.

Drill down to inventory profiles
Trace action messages across peggings (Upstream and downstream)
Ability to filter action messages based on planner code
Added functionality to set tolerance parameters for action messages.

Network Navigation

Incomplete Supply Network Identification: Added “No Supply Path” Button to detect dead ends (No Sourcing path) in the supply chain network.

Network Navigation: Ability to traverse across the supply chain network to view Inventory Profiles.

Multi Dimensional Analytics

Custom Reports: Ability to create custom Reports in Multi Dimensional Analytics module.

Union Reports: Functionality to merge multiple reports in one single report.

Shared Bookmark: Functionality to share bookmarks with others (Individual Users and User Groups).

Custom Captions and Formats: Functionality to customize UI captions and formats for reports.

Report Templates: Added new report templates; Attribute Policies and Demand Status Report.

Security

View Group Security: Added functionality to filter objects viewable to a user or a group.

Algorithm

Advanced Supply Assignment: Added solver flag to re-assign supply after constraint planning to obtain balanced peggings across time.

New Supply within Lead Time: Ability to control if new supply can be created within the Lead time.

Pegging Re-assignment: Continuously evaluate peggings and release and re-assign material assignment to optimize the plan.

Modeling

Phantom Bills : Ability to flatten phantom bills to

minimize network complexity during plan execution

Eliminate network complexity during result analysis

Reduce Model size

Manufacturing Order Status: Added a Status “NEW” for Manufacturing Orders.

WIP Status: Added a WIP Status “Scheduled” for scheduled Manufacturing Orders.

Integration

Export of Summaries: Ability to export Action Messages, Material and Capacity Summaries.

Import of variable Plan Calendars: Import of Plan Calendars (buckets) of variable size.

Inventory Plan Orders: Included in the planorders export.

InSync release iPlanner 3.0!

San Francisco, CA – Nov 1, 2009 – Advanced Planning Software Vendor InSync, Inc. is out today with a new release of its iPlanner platform, adding new features and a new SaaS edition. There are more than 25 new feature enhancements in 3.0, such as expanded algorithm functionality, improved analysis capabilities, including new methods of “what if” analysis. The new capabilities build on features that first debuted with the iPlanner 2.0 release in April 2008. “You’ll see us continue to improve both plan analysis and what if work flows with every release going forward, as it’s a key part of our strategy”, said InSync founder and CEO, Ram Thota. The iPlanner 3.0 release caps off a solid year of growth for the APS vendor despite the down economy. “The SaaS version of iPlanner enables small and medium sized companies that do not have large IT departments to implement and benefit from an advanced planning system” said Mr. Thota.

About InSync

AC -Surface Drilling Equipment division goes live with iPlanner Factory Planning

San Francisco, CA – Oct 19, 2010 – InSync, Inc., announced today that Atlas Copco’s Surface Drilling equipment division went live with the iPlanner factory planning solution in Orebro.

About Atlas Copco

Atlas Copco is an industrial group with world-leading positions in compressors, construction and mining equipment, power tools and assembly systems. The Group delivers sustainable solutions for increased customer productivity, through innovative products and services. For further information please visit http://www. atlascopco.com

About InSync