APS & Mes: What does each offer?

We live in a moment where the manufacturing market becomes every day more competitive and dynamic, making companies seek solutions that allow them to have better control of their production, increase their productive efficiency and reduce losses. This need comes the desire to find technologies that help us produce more quickly, cheaply, qualified and effective.

By starting the demand for expert tools to assist in the management, planning, programming and control of their production, many companies end up with a doubt about which type of solution is the best to meet their needs and actually solve their problems. When you start research, different options begin to emerge, and we often can't translate into practice the role of each tool and how they can help us.

Inserted in this context, two types of tools emerge as the capable of helping companies to improve their monitoring of the production process and seek a competitive advantage through the PCP: Mes software and APS software.

Mes (Manufacturing Execution Systems) software are tools focused on execution and production control. The main objective of a software is to provide effective execution of production orders and monitor equipment and production notes. Some of the benefits that can be expected from monthly software are: reducing refuses and rework, reduction of maintenance costs, better machine efficiency, reduced material losses and better quality of production information.

Among the main features of a month we can list:

• Automation of production data collection;
• Online production management;
• Equipment Performance Analysis ( OEE - Overall Equipment Effectiveness );
• Material and inventory control automation;
• Aid in quality control;
• Capture of real cost data;
• Online maintenance control.

Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software are widely used tools in production planning and programming . It is focused on sequencing and planning with finite capacity, that is, taking into account various restrictions of the factory floor such as resources, labor, productive calendars, tooling and others. Among the benefits that APS software can highlight: Reduction of factory crossing time, inventory reduction, setup reduction, better use of resources and improvement in delivery deadlines.

APS, in turn, has its main features listed below:

• Production planning generating the Master Production Plan;
• Inventory policies planning;
• Generation of production orders;
• Sequencing of finite production orders;
• Simulation of different sequencing scenarios;
• Material management.

In general, we can say that the month is used at the operational level and is responsible for monitoring work ongoing and ensuring its execution, while generating a complete diagnosis about the situation of its production historically, an important input for the company's tactical decisions. On the other hand, APS works at operational and tactical levels, setting plans with a short and medium -term future vision to meet industry and long -term objectives to assist in strategic decisions related to productive capacity and resource sizing. Both systems will work together with the company's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP (ERP), maintaining constant communication, providing decision makers the information necessary to be more assertive.

In the following image we seek to temporally exemplify the scope of acting of each solution:

Mes and APS: distinct scopes that complement each other.

It is worth the caveat that, although they have very distinct scopes, the distinction between month and APS is not always so clear. Each software has its peculiarities and its range of functions, however you may find a certain overlap in the proposed features. Some month software is able to provide functions that are generally from the scope of the APS and vice versa.

But the doubt persists, which one do I need? Well, we regret that there is no ready answer to this question. The list of features of each tool can be quite attractive, but the answer will depend on your company's short and long term needs. Often the answer is both, because far from being competing systems, they are actually complementary systems. And it is the combination of both that will give us complete control of production, ie planning, programming and control.