Qguar APS system
modern production planning
Automatic scheduling of production that takes into account available resources, established priorities and objectives.
- Notifications
- indicators
APS System (Advanced Planning and Scheduling System) is a piece of software designed to optimize and schedule production in real time. As opposed to traditional ERP systems, APS takes limitations of resources (machines, materials, operators) dynamically into account, which makes it possible to react quickly to failures and changes in ordered amounts.
Production planning and production order scheduling are complex processes. They require a lot of experience and knowledge, especially in the domain of process optimization and critical path management.
What is APS?
The APS (Advanced Planning & Scheduling) System from Quantum Qguar is a system designed for automatic and comprehensive production planning and scheduling. It cooperates with many ERP systems to realize production planning tasks in long-term, medium-term and short-term perspectives. This, in turn, allows one to increase flow capacity, reduce realization time, optimize reserves management and improve delivery efficiency.
SYSTEM APS QGUAR - Examples of screens
Production planning and scheduling: timeframe
Production planning (rough planning)
in the context of the Qguar APS system is a stage that proceeds production scheduling and aims at assessing plan feasibility with the use of limited resources, without entering into details of required operations. The time horizon of production planning is usually defined in months, quarters and years.
Key aspects of rough planning:
- Quick feasibility analysis: It allows one to assess quickly, whether specific production objectives can be reached with the available resources within a given time.
- Preliminary loading of production resources: A rough estimation of the use of machines and workforce (Capacity Planning) without determining precise sequences of operations.
- Horizontal optimisation: It allows bottlenecks to be identified at an early stage.
- It constitutes the basis for Detailed Scheduling and allows one to winnow unfeasible plans out before machines are loaded.
Production schedule
The production schedule is decidedly a more detailed organized list than the production plan. This is the level, where one goes from the general considerations down to detailed ones. At this level, the production route and the product tree are divided into production and technological operations. The schedule assigns the required resources – such as a workplace, machines, raw materials and employees – to each operation. The time horizon is much shorter than in the production plan and its operating units are seconds, minutes, hours, shifts and days. The production schedule is usually visualized in the form of the Gannt chart.
The Qguar APS system automates planning and scheduling processes, while taking priorities, materials availability and other resources into account.
What are the application domains of Qguar APS?
If your company struggles with Excel spreadsheets that become problematic every time you attempt to change the current plan, APS is the solution to this problem. Here are the industries, where these systems perform very well:
Automotive industry
This is the cradle of advanced planning. Due to vast numbers of components and to adoption of the Just-In-Time (JIT) model, even a 15 minutes delay may stop an entire assembly line.
- Challenge: Synchronization of deliveries from hundreds of sub-contractors with a dynamic assembly plan.
- Role of APS: Precise arrangement of sequences on lines that takes retooling and availability of specific parts into account.
Production of food and beverages and of FMC
- Challenge: Short expiry dates of raw materials, the need for frequent cleaning of machines (allergens, product taste switching) and high level of seasonality.
- Role of APS: Optimization of the production queue to minimize downtimes for cleaning (e.g. planning of activities from light- to dark- coloured products) and avoidance of wasting raw materials due to exceeded expiry dates.
Electronic and High-Tech industries
In electronics the life cycle of a product may be shorter than the expiry date of yoghurt, while numbers of minute SMDs per one printed circuit board may reach many thousands.
- Challenge: Frequent engineering changes and high variability of the demand.
- Role of APS: Management of huge material structures (BOM) and fast plan recalculation in the case of sudden shortages in the deliveries of semiconductors.
Chemical and pharmaceutical industries
This is the world of process and batch production, where strict technological regimes are applied.
- Challenge: Management of product quarantine, strict batch tracking and limitations resulting from tank/reactor capacity.
- Role of APS: Taking product aging/cooling times into account as a rigid limitation in a schedule.
Production of furniture and window joinery
The industry has evolved from the stage of a handcraft to that of mass customization.
- Challenge: As each order may be different (profiles, dimensions, colour, cabinet hardware), manual planning becomes a logistic nightmare.
- Role of APS: Grouping of orders with similar parameters (e.g. the same colour of the laminate/veneer) to drastically reduce the number of machine retooling.
Heavy industry and machine-building industry
One-off production or small-batch production with a very long cycle (e.g. manufacturing of mining machines, shipbuilding).
- Challenge: Very long times of operations and sharing of unique resources (e.g. huge overhead travelling cranes or specialised welders).
- Role of APS: Scheduling that takes into account availability of not only machines, but also employees with specific skills on the basis of a competence matrix.
How does the APS-class Qguar system work?
The APS System is equipped with algorithms that allow companies to acquire schedules corresponding to production needs irrespective of their line of trade. APS software allows one to set up schedules according to pre-established criteria, e.g. realization of orders within as short periods as possible, maximum use of the stock of machines or minimized time and number of machine retooling during production.
It is possible to use the system not only to schedule realization of production orders on machines, but also verify accessible production resources, such as raw materials, tools or availability of labour force. The functions of prioritization and weighing particular optimization parameters provide planners with tools to precisely model the planning process.
The APS System supports forward and backward planning models. It is also possible to perform scheduling that takes bottlenecks into account, in order to optimize schedules in this respect. Moreover, the system also allows only selected planning areas to be scheduled and/or displayed, to facilitate user’s work.
Production scheduling algorithms
The following are the main algorithms used by Qguar APS to plan schedules:
- order realization term and priority;
- position of operations within orders, with a hierarchy of attributes;
- the longest time of order realization;
- the shortest time of order realization.
Thanks to implementation of adequate planning settings, it is possible carry out parallel scheduling, order by order, as well as sequential scheduling, stage by state.
Inteligentne podejmowanie decyzji w ogromnej przestrzeni możliwych rozwiązań (Search Based AI).
Qguar APS takes advantage of methods developed in such domains as heuristics, metaheuristics, constraint solving and search based AI. In particular, it implements such algorithms as: Tabu Search, Simulated Annealing, Late Acceptance, Hill Climbing. These algorithms constitute one of the fundamental approaches of artificial intelligence to searching very large spaces of possible solutions and to their iterative improvement. This allows the system to effectively analyse millions of variants of schedules, while taking into account technological limitations, availability of resources, stock levels and interdependencies between operations, and then to select a solution that ensures the best possible effectiveness of the production process.
Solving problems of limitations that result from availability of resources and stock (Optimization AI).
The problems of scheduling production operations belong to the class of NP-complete problems, i.e. problems, where the number of possible solutions grows exponentially. In a typical production plant, the amounts of production orders and resources exceed computing capabilities of the biggest computers to perform required operations in finite, acceptable time. Due to this computational complexity, no man or an ordinary algorithm is going to find a good solution.
Qguar APS belongs to the Constraint Optimization category within the Optimization AI. It does not yield one ideal solution. It generates millions of plans, corrects them in an iterative manner, finds the best plan within several dozens of seconds.
Operational costs optimization (Solver AI)
Qguar APS does not learn on the basis of data. It searches the space of solutions according to the conditions and optimization objectives defined by man. It optimizes decisions, solves planning problems. It yields a greater financial outcome than ML models, because it optimizes directly operational costs. It does not hallucinate, but performs precise calculations.
Production planning with APS - what are the advantages?
Qguar APS allows production plan to be visualized in graphic form to facilitate process management and location in time at every stage. Schedules take the form of Gantt charts that show locations of production operations performed on machines in time. The graphical user interface of our APS system is characterized by simplicity that makes it easy for the user to get acquainted with the system and facilitates its intuitive operation.
The APS system supports production logistics efficiently by providing adequate analytical tools, so that the use may easily acquire required data. The Qguar APS system for production planning is adapted to the needs of various production models. It proves very effective in the following types of production:
- discrete manufacturing,
- process manufacturing,
- big-lot production,
- one-off production.
The PAS system allows the operator to manually edit a proposed plan through the drag&drop function.
APS and MES systems – cooperation and data exchange
Optional integration of APS with MES-class software enables bidirectional communication between planning and production departments. Thus, planners can trace production flow and react to sudden events – such as failures, downtimes, delays in order realization – that require rescheduling of operations.
Moreover, communication between APS and MES systems allows updated work plans to be delivered without delay to production stations. The APS software provided by Quantum is equipped with predefined reports that allow the user to verify the efficiency of process planning. Thus, the planner may quickly determine:
- the average order realization advance or delay time,
- timeliness of deliveries and work tasks,
- duration of downtimes and machine idleness,
- the degree, to which priorities are followed.
The user may also independently create and configure reports according to individual needs.
Thanks to strict and comprehensive production control, the MES system allows one to increase the effectiveness of labour force (registration of performed tasks) and machines (faster reaction to failures and breakdowns).
How to integrate APS with other IT systems?
To make the most of APS-class systems, it is often required to integrate them with other IT systems (e.g. MES, ERP) that are implemented in a company. This, in turn, requires creation of appropriate data exchange interfaces. An important stage of systems integration consists in determining which events will trigger transmission of messages from one system to the other. The following count among the most popular methods of systems integration:
- File exchange interface – systems can communicate via data files. The files must have a uniform format, e.g. EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), XML (eXtensible Markup Language) or JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) that has been gaining popularity recently. Exchange of data files may be realized directly between applications, or via an API (application programming interface). API is a set of procedures, communication protocols and tools that enable cooperation between different programs.
- Databases – this solution involves implementation of an intermediate database shared by both systems. In such case, integrated systems constantly update the intermediate database. In user-defined time intervals, both programs check, whether the intermediate database contains new information introduced by the other system. If it does, they update their own internal databases.
- Internet services – programs may also exchange data via an internet interface. In such configuration, systems establish communication with a database located in the cloud. This is realized by means of the http protocol. The database in the cloud transmits data in the XML format and the data are recorded in both systems.
- Standard interface – if systems are provided by one supplier, it is highly probable that they will have already been equipped with an interface. Such solution ensures acquisition of high operational stability in a short time. It also allows one to avoid situations, where it is necessary to create the interface from scratch, which involves a number of companies in the works.
What do you gain thanks to Qguar APS?
- Reduction of order realization time and increased productivity;
- Improved OTIF (On-Time In-Full) indicator;
- Reduction of warehoused stock;
- Reduced number of failures to meet realization deadlines;
- Minimized time and number of retooling operations;
- Maximized use of resources;
- Better quality of client servicing;
- Intuitive operation;
- Cost reduction;
- Possibility of realizing a production schedule without a MES-class system.
Key functions of the APS Qguar system:
- Scheduling of production orders with accuracy to a single technological process step (operation);
- Control over availability of resources;
- Support of expiry dates of resources in stock;
- Control over availability of tools;
- Quantitative control of labour force availability;
- Control of labour force skills;
- Scheduling according to specific areas;
- Multisession operation;
- Forward and backward scheduling;
- Scheduling that accounts for bottlenecks;
- Support of attributes;
- Realization of orders within the MES-class system or directly within APS.
- “What-if” simulation and analyses of various scenarios.
How long does it take to implement APS?
Implementation of APS software depends on the level of complexity of production processes and on the amount of data that the system is going to work on. A standard implementation takes from several weeks up to several months. The process covers:
- pre-implementation analysis,
- software configuration,
- acceptance testing,
- training of employees,
- assistance at system start-up.
FAQ – APS
Answers to frequently asked questions concerning Qguar APS
You should start thinking about implementing the Qguar APS system when the managers and production planning people feel the need for support in advanced scheduling of orders and optimising the order handling scenarios.
The optimization algorithms of Qguar APS allow you to plan orders in a way to minimize the total delivery time, which in turn increases productivity and reduces the unit production costs.
The APS system allows precise scheduling of production orders and supports practical implementation of the „just-in-time” concept through integration with ERP class systems. Thanks to a full synchronization of provisioning and production, we are able to reduce stocks and optimize the supply processes.
Choosing Qguar APS as an extension to the functional ERP system opens new opportunities to reduce production and provisioning costs and to improve efficiency of the personnel. Implementation of the APS system along with MES and ERP class systems results in significant increase in performance and reduction in personnel requirements in the domain of process supervision and servicing.
Qguar APS does have an algorithm for minimizing the average delay from delivery date. This algorithm takes into account the priority levels allocated to orders and plans the realization sequence according to the priority level.
There are three ways of presenting a production process in Qguar APS:
- Gantt chart for the realization production tasks at particular workplaces;
- Gantt chart for staffing of particular workplaces and operations;
- Production posts loading time graph.
Qguar APS has a functionality allowing comparison of several alternative versions of the production plan. This allows the production planner to decide, for example, of the maximum loading of particular resources.
Via the dedicated interface, Qguar APS and MES (Manufacturing Executing Systems) or ERP systems are able to exchange data necessary to illustrate the production plans. After optimization, the master system receives the production order realization scenario selected, with all the starting and completion dates for all operations, allocation of resources and due dates for all resources, materials, semi-products, etc.