Tag Archives: Supply Chain

iPlanner 3.5

Algorithm

Attribute Based Planning:

Control which demand can use which supply based on attributes
Determine production process based on Attributes

Item Location Level Build Ahead and Late Limits:

WIP: Functionality to Schedule an Operation for a WIP Manufacturing Order

Supply Consumption Tolerance:

Option [SingleLevel / Propogate] determine desired behavior of Supply tolerances
Minimum Supply Lot Percent: Determines if Supply Order can be used or not

Manufacturing Orders Control: Control how work order is planned [Demand Driven, Use Start Date, and Use End Date]

Capacity Consumption Criteria: Control how capacity is consumed when there is yield [Use End Qty, Use Start Qty]

Modeling

Build ahead limits: Specify build ahead limits at the Item Location level and sourcing path combination

Manufacturing Details: Specify input work orders as either a “Scheduled Start Date” or “Scheduled End Date”

Enhanced Shelf Life Functionality: Specify the percent of the overall shelf life time the item is allowed to consume at this location “Shelf Life Pct”

Unconstrained Resource Criteria: Specify whether non-working hours is unconstrained or constrained for resource that are set to unconstrained

Campaign Overrun Criteria: Specify whether it is OK for Orders that can start within a Campaign can end outside the campaign

Alternate Resource Load balance criteria: Specify if the load balance should be based on utilization weighted on absolute available capacity

Reason Codes

Reason Codes specifying the constraints for Delays and Shortages.

Foundation

User Extensions: Added editing and format capability in Pivot format for User Extension objects

User Interface

Intelligent Color Coding for Lateness: Red and Green Color scales.

Contextual Drill Down: Be able to drill down

Inventory Graphs: Plot multiple safety stock lines in inventory Graph

Demand Management: Highlight multiple cells and Apply a formula. See Subtotals of highlighted cells

User Settings: – Added default layouts to Vertical Grids – Functionality to restore default layouts

Excel Add-In

Demand Planning: Excel plugin to the demand planning suite

Action Messages

Manufacturing Orders: Added Problems definitions for Manufacturing Orders

Examples DB

Ability to create test cases with easy editing and Management of Data and behavior documentation

Localization

Languages: Added German Language Support.

Enhanced Korean Swedish Language Support

Demand Planning

Forecasting Algorithms: New Triple Exponential and Double Exponential

Demand View Definitions:

Support Editing For Measures with an Average Cube Function
Partially Keyed Data functionality
Validation Expression for save data check
Added functionality that automatically saves new Intersections
Add Functionality to allocate changes based on another Measures split ratios (Split Measure)
Filter on Measure Data in cube retrieval
Search Hierarchies and dimension data in Demand views

Integration

High Performance Integration: Added new “Bulk Loads” for fast integration with high volume data.

NetSuite Integration Adapters: New built in adapters and mappings with NetSuite ERP.

Lawson Integration Adapters: Be able to run several Transactions within a connection

Multi-Dimensional Analytics

Template Synchronization: Functionality to add Fields that are added after saving layout

Höganäs invests in iPlanner Solution

San Francisco, CA – May 4, 2012 – InSync, Inc., announced today that Höganäs AB will implement the iPlanner Planning solution. The goal is to reduce inventories, improve efficiencies and secure a high customer delivery service level.

About Höganäs

Höganäs is a Swedish multinational which is the world’s largest producer of powdered metals. It develops and markets powders for customers in metallurgical industries. The Company’s business portfolio comprises such products and services as sintered components, electromagnetic applications, brazing, chemical and metallurgical, hot polymer filtration, iron fortification, friction, GLIDCOP, sintered stainless steel filters, surface coating and welding. For further information please visit http://www.hoganas.com

About InSync

InSync Inc is the leading innovator in the field of Advanced Planning Systems (APS) – helping companies improve their operational performance. Based in San Francisco, California, InSync’s mission is to deliver innovative, intuitive, integrated and implementable solutions. For more information, please visit http://www.insyncsoft.com

Vedum Kök och Bad choses iPlanner to streamline their manufacturing operations

San Francisco, CA – Feb 19, 2012 – InSync, Inc., announced today that Vedum Kök och Bad will implement iPlanner Factory Planning. The solution will enhance and improve the planning of Vedum’s manufacturing operations.

About Vedum Kök och Bad

Vedum Kök och Bad is the largest family owned manufacturer of Kitchen and Bath solutions in Sweden. All manufacturing is done in Vedum outside of Gothenburg. The company operations are divided into 3 Divisions; Construction, showcases, and Bath Norden. For further information please visit http://www.vedum.se

About InSync

Holmen Paper selects iPlanner for Supply Chain improvement initiative

San Francisco, CA – Jan 12, 2012 – InSync, Inc., announced today that Iggesund paperboard, a division of Holmen AB, has selected iPlanner for initiatives to improve their Production Planning and Master Planning. The solution is part of Holmen’s plan to implement a new way of planning their supply chain. Positioning this extensive project has already started, after that implementation projects will begin. All parts of the solution will be implemented in about a year.

About Holmen

Holmen is a global company with 5,000 employees which bases its business in the pulp and paper industry. Holmen’s main products are newsprint (both white and colored) and magazine paper for newspapers, magazines, directories and advertising prints. They also produce paperboard for consumer packaging and graphical applications. For more information please visit http://www.holmen.com

About InSync

Sandvik Materials to implement iPlanner in Sandviken

San Francisco, CA – Dec 16, 2011 – InSync, Inc., announced today that the Sandvik Materials has selected the iPlanner solution to improve its factory performance for their factory in Sandviken.

About Sandvik Materials

Sandvik Materials Technology is a developer and producer of advanced stainless steels, special alloys, titanium and other high-performance materials. Sandvik Materials is a division of Sandvik, a high-technology engineering group and a world-leader in tooling, materials technology, mining and construction. It has about 47,000 employees in 130 countries, with annual sales of approximately $12 billion. For further information please visit http://www.smt.sandvik.com/

About InSync

Our Home to implement iPlanner solution in Noodle Division

San Francisco, CA – Dec 14, 2011 – InSync, Inc., announced today that OurHome’s Noodle Division has selected the iPlanner solution to improve its factory performance across 8 factories in South Korea.

About OurHome

Formerly known as LG Foods, OurHome is a diverse food manufacturing and services company based in South Korea with Net sales of $1.1Billion. OurHome manufactures and provides processed foods,

Ready-to-eat meals, home-made tasting food, bakery and noodle products. For more information visit http://www.ourhome.co.kr

About InSync

Ottogi goes live with iPlanner Demand Planning

San Francisco, CA – Nov 1, 2011 – InSync, Inc., announced today that Ottogi went live with the iPlanner Demand planning solution to manage their demand across all product lines.

About Ottogi

Ottogi Co, is a South Korean food company headquartered in Seoul with net sales of USD $1.2 Billion.

Ottogi was found in May 1969, and established local subsidiaries in China in 1992, New Zealand in 1997, United States in 2005 and Vietnam in 2008. In 2008, Ottogi took over Sampo Foods, a frozen food manufacturer as well as Samhwa Hanyang Foods, a tea maker in 2010 to expand its business portfolio.

Ottogi manufactures more than one-thousand items, ranging from ready meal to canned tuna as well as condiments. The company is best known for its Korean-style ready-to-eat curry products, ketchup and mayonnaise. In 1980s, the firm triumphed over multinational manufacturers such as H. J. Heinz Company and Hellmann’s and Best Foods in South Korean market and still has over 80% market share for ketchup and mayonnaise in Korea. Ottogi also manufactures instant ramen, noodle, pre-washed rice, dumpling, tea and many more. For more information visit http://www.ottogi.co.kr

About InSync

Hyundai WIA Machinery Division initiates iPlanner APS Project

San Francisco, CA – Jul 19, 2011 – InSync, Inc., announced today that Hyundai WIA has initiated a planning project with the iPlanner solution to improve its factory performance for the Machinery Division.

About Hyundai WIA

Hyundai WIA is a member of the Hyundai Motor Group and had total sales roughly around 4.2 Billion US Dollars in 2010. The machinery division has the biggest market share in South Korea since 2000. For further information please visit http://en.hyundai-wia.co.kr/index.asp

About InSync

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.