Advanced planning and scheduling (APS) is an IT solution for optimizing the production plan in a manufacturing company, which takes into account all available resources in order to use them as efficiently as possible. Often used within or independent of an ERP system, by a person in a position of a planner in a manufacturing company.
Implementing APS software is often a company’s response to the lack of synchronization between departments and processes within the company, in order to bring about full optimization of work. In particular, APS allows to:
- Predicting customer orders
- Anticipation of supply capabilities
- Plan production scenarios
- Eliminate unnecessary excess inventory
An independent and complementary tool to APS is the RTS (Real-time scheduling) solution. RTS is a tool that has all the necessary functions known from APS, but it is devoid of typical ERP functions. It is designed for companies that still want to benefit from intelligent, data-driven scheduling, but do not have full knowledge of real-time production. RTS allows for simplified production planning, taking into account all current available data from the machines.
