Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
Planning and scheduling involves the whole company. Starting from a strategic sales forecast, the production schedules of the factories and single resource rosters are developed. This is an important task for achieving competitive advantages through operational excellence in the manufacturing process. State-of-the-art rules-based schedulers with semi-manual reorganization of tasks are not able to support factories in reaching this operational excellence. iFRP goes beyond that, being the only true optimizer that calculates the best production schedule in real-time.
iFRP Goes Beyond State of the Art ............................................................................ 12 iFRP Intelligent Scheduling ................................................................................... 12 Intelligent Scheduling How iFRP Works .............................................................. 13 Scenario description ........................................................................................... 13 Conventional Solutions ....................................................................................... 14 Example: Changing Factory Restrictions ......................................................... 14 iFRP Intelligent Scheduling .......................................................................... 14 Advantages over current approaches .............................................................. 14
Summary ................................................................................................................................ 17
1.
Preface
2.
Shop Floor scheduling depends on different data and functionality then ERP.
Planning and scheduling is an integrated task. Each layer in the scheduling pyramid depends on every other layer. In the planning and scheduling process, the upper layers (demand forecast, supply chain management and factory resource planning) determine when and where a certain quantity of a particular product is needed. ERP modules can perform this task. The factory floor needs to ensure that the factory output is in line with these forecasts. This; however, is not typically an ERP task. ERP systems simply do not have access to all relevant factory data. For example, ERP systems do not know the current state of machines (operational, maintenance status, off-line, etc.) on the factory floor or many of the constraints (machine capacities, staffing requirements, maintenance schedules, recipe management, etc.) which govern the production process. This data is available in MES systems. Ideally, the ERP system delivers the production targets and receives resulting production plans meeting these targets from the MES layer. So what happens on the shop floor and why is ERP-based scheduling insufficient? The factory floor deals with production orders. A production order is the basic line item of a production plan. Initially (prior to production planning) it consists of a product with an amount, due date, and list of machines which can process it. Eventually (after production planning is complete) it contains a scheduled start and end date and a selected machine on which it is to be processed.
by iFactory Inc., 2010, All rights reserved.
2.2
Planning and scheduling utilizes efficiency levers like energy savings or setup time reduction. An efficient planning and scheduling tool directly contributes to the company's financial performance. At the company level, cash flow and profitability are essential. Planning and scheduling can address the appropriate levers at the plant level to influence the companys overall performance.
Scheduling controls levers which directly influence the factory and company performance
The impact of scheduling on plant performance and utilization can have a great effect on operational excellence. In the following figure we show how factory success measures can be influenced by the optimization levers which planning and scheduling controls. This should give an idea of the important role which scheduling can play in utilizing and controlling these levers. Inventory Reduction Not all resources in a factory work at the same rate. Some machines are newer and faster, some can handle exotic products which may make them slower in certain cases. In addition the speed of machines is influenced by a wide variety of factors, e.g. product variants or events like late delivery of raw materials. These aspects cause different types of bottlenecks which impact the manufacturing process. Static bottlenecks include machine capacities and are known upfront. They do not move across the manufacturing process or the shop floor.
They do not need to be predicted and even simple production planning solutions take these bottlenecks into account. Dynamic bottlenecks only appear at certain times depending on the specific product variants which are currently produced. They may move across the process and shop floor and are difficult to predict. Few production planning systems take these bottlenecks into account. Event driven bottlenecks appear when an unexpected event occurs. This can be the break down of a machine or the loss of products due to quality issues or an unexpected high-priority customer order. These bottlenecks are inherently unpredictable and require quick reaction on the factory floor. Production planning systems must have a real-time capability in order to support factory staff reacting to unexpected events. Only quick and appropriate action can minimize the impact of an event-driven bottleneck on the production process. The standard approach to dealing with bottlenecks of any kind is the maintenance of inventory (safety stock) for all or at least for the most critical materials as well as the use of longer-than-necessary set up times to buffer unexpected delays. Efficient production planning, i.e., planning which can effectively and more detailed set-up matrices deal with every type of bottleneck manages production with significantly less inventory than a standard approach. Increase of Throughput Poor production planning can result in unnecessary idle times for resources and worse unnecessary setup times. Another reason for idling machines is the use of buffer times in order bridge small deviations from the schedule. This is intended to ensure that material and resources are available when needed. Allowing for these buffer times also simplifies the
by iFactory Inc., 2010, All rights reserved.
iFRP
Component 3 Component 4
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Manufacturing Days
Value adding manufacturing step Non value adding time
Quoted delivery dates can be confirmed to customers to customers, even if buffer and idle time is reduced
A sophisticated planning and scheduling solution can reduce idle times by optimizing setups and reducing safety buffers while maintaining the same degree of predictability. Sales staff can commit to earlier delivery dates and still expect them to be met with a high degree of reliability. Eliminating idle times also results in cycle time reduction and improves factory throughput. Reduction in Operating Cost The reduction of idle times frees capacity hidden in the production process. More can be done with less. Planning and scheduling helps to reduce inventories by producing materials just-in-time. Optimized resource allocation helps to save energy which will become an increasingly important factory as energy cost are expected to go up in the future. Another lever is the reduction of waste. In some factories the production process cannot be stopped arbitrarily. Machines must produce something or they must be shut down for extended periods of time, for example, at the end of the year. If production is poorly planned a factory may be forced to produce waste just to keep machines running. An efficient scheduler can reshuffle waste production to the planned, end-of-year shutdowns, thus avoiding their production entirely.
Real TimePlanning & Scheduling 2.3 Planning and Scheduling in General A Historic Overview
Scheduling solutions of the past 30 years were unable or only partly able to assist management in utilizing plant capacities. In the following paragraph we will discuss the most important scheduling approaches with their strengths and weaknesses.
Before midst 80s MRP MRP II APS DPS iFRP
Chronological sequence of planning and scheduling concepts
From 2005
From 2006
2.3.1 Material Requirement Planning (MRP) Material Requirements Planning (MRP) is a production planning and inventory control system used to manage manufacturing processes. It creates a production plan by decomposing the bills of materials into sub-products and uses averaged production times for each process step. Combined with an infinite capacity scheduler MRP can deliver duty rosters for specific machines. However, MRP has some major drawbacks: Average production time: The system uses average production times for each production step. Improvements on the shop floor are not generally considered in MRP scheduling. They only lead to longer lead times, because each step must take the same average production time, even if it is in fact performed faster. If on the other hand a single step takes too long, then the entire schedule may become obsolete. Unlimited capacity: MRP calculations are based on the assumption that each resource has unlimited capacity. This is an unrealistic assumption. A production plan created based on this assumption does not fit the realities on the shop floor. Missing feedback: There is no closed-loop feedback between the participating modules of MRP, making it hard to react to internal and external events which may be disrupting the production process. No shop floor connectivity: MRP has no interaction with the shop floor; therefore, it cannot react to events. MRP is located at the ERP layer which uses a different data architecture than shop floor systems, which consolidate their data at the MES layer. Rules-based (heuristic) approach: MRP uses rules in order to calculate a production schedule. This is necessary due to efficiency issues. But these
10
11
3.
Integrated planning Analytical solution Real time capacity Comparison of existing planning and scheduling solutions among relevant dimensions for utilizing scheduling optimization levers
12
Real TimePlanning & Scheduling 3.2 Intelligent Scheduling How iFRP Works
The following example shows the benefit of iFRP compared to traditional, rulesbased approaches. Rules-based solutions use a set of heuristics which cover the most common scheduling scenarios for the given production process. Rules-based approaches perform poorly when changes occur in the production process. If a machine is changed/added or new product variants are included, rules-based solutions have two possibilities, 1) Using the old heuristics for the new situation which decreases output quality or 2) adapting the rules. The latter option results in a customization effort for the solution and takes time to develop, meanwhile the production process may yet change again. Also, the heuristics are developed from the experiences of factory staff. These experiences also take time to develop and program into the set of rules. iFRP on the other hand does not use heuristics. It creates a mathematical model of the production process and solves this problem in an analytical fashion. It considers many possible schedules within this model and chooses the best one based on optimization criteria. This feature makes iFRP robust under changes in the factory layout or the production process. These changes result in a slightly different model which can be calculated in the same way. There is no need to update any rules. The following scenarios will further explain the scheduling capabilities of iFRP 3.2.1 Scenario description Scenario 1: Suppose the demand environment for a particular product requires three red products and three green products to be manufactured during the next production cycle. The products are produced on the same production line. The color is applied by a coloring device, which must be cleaned for 30 minutes before a new color can be applied. It is most optimal to produce all of the items of one color first (say reds first), do the change-over for the coloring device, and then produce the products of the second color. This production sequence has one downtime of 30 minutes to clean the coloring device Scenario 2: The Scenario 1 situation can be made more complicated. Lets assume that the products must be transported to a different factory in special transportation crates, which are limited in supply and depend on the shape of the product. Further, assume that two products of the red variety and one of the green variety are of shape A and the remaining products are of shape B. Further, assume that all of the crates required for shipping shape B products are currently in use. The previous production schedule for Scenario 1 (first reds, then greens) is no longer feasible. The third red product cannot be placed into a transportation crate because no crates for
13
14
How these advantages participate in utilizing the efficiency of the scheduling optimization levers can be seen in the diagram below: 1. Speed: iFRP is very fast especially when compared to the manual process. The problem is typically solved in a few minutes, while manual solutions may take hours. The speed advantage depends on the complexity of the particular production environment. 2. Robustness: The algorithm does not depend on rules derived from a particular setup of a given factory. As demonstrated by means of example, any such rules become invalid if the factory setup changes. iFRP does not suffer from this drawback 3. Unbiased Solution: The number of theoretically possible production sequences can be extremely large because they depend on the number of different products which are to be produced during a given production cycle. Existing solutions do not consider the entire spectrum of possible solutions, but are biased by experience derived rules. The quality of the output (the optimal production sequence) depends on the quality of the rules and, ultimately, on the competence of the factory staff who developed the rules. iFRP considers the entire spectrum of possible solutions and calculates the optimal solution analytically unbiased by experience derived rules.
15
12 10 8
STRATEGIC DECISIONS, E.G. COST
iFRP operates in the whole solution space, not only at known local optima
4. Flexible Optimization: The optimization criteria are built into rules-based systems. Once a rules-based system is defined to optimize according to a certain criterion for example highest productivity then the optimization criterion cannot be changed. Within iFRP, the planning and optimization aspects are decoupled. The optimization criteria are input parameters for the production planning algorithm and can be easily changed or combined. 5. Analytic Solution: iFRP allows for easy changes to the Virtual Factory. Factory staff can plan changes in the factory by simulating these changes first in the Virtual Factory and analyzing the impact of these changes. This helps factory staff in the decision making process.
16
Summary
Planning and scheduling enables control of efficiency levers which directly influence factory and company performance. Reduction of inventories, increased throughput and reduction of cost help to reach sustainable competitive advantages. Planning and scheduling is not a local task; but integrated in a company-wide planning process contributing to the company's overall success. To utilize these gains, the planning and scheduling solution must do more than just deliver an executable schedule. It needs to deliver an optimal solution with regard to the desired goals while considering all types of constraints including dynamic and event driven bottlenecks. Rules-based systems and approaches to production planning are out of touch with the every day challenges on the factory floor and simply cannot deliver optimal results. iFRP is an effective real-time planning tool capable of controlling all optimization levers and providing savings by unlocking hidden capacity potentials in the production process providing a quick return on investment.
17
by iFactory Inc., 2010, all rights reserved. iFRP is a registered trademark of iFactory Inc. All used names of products and companies are properties of their relevant owners. The functionality of the described products is under frequent development and can change at any time. Shown examples have exemplary character only.
iFactory Inc. 1690 19th Street West Linn, OR 97068 USA
18