What should I implement before: APS or month?

Control of the production of the ground floor is a process that has historically important in industrial management. Productivity, repeatability, Taylor ... This is all in the blood of industrial management. The Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) systems came to raise the management of production activities, integrating ERP software management information directly with the ground floor resources. Despite officially emerged in the 1990s, it was in the last decade that the software of the month category became more evaluated and widespread in Brazilian industry, with the possibility of managing the execution of production and the flow of materials rapidly and assertively. A great solution to know what happened and what is happening in your factory.

Production pointing, one of the exits of a month solution, is a key player for factory programming, as we need to know what was performed not to produce again, occupying the productive capacity that would be available to make another product. Such a mistake can make programming a different premise than real, generating a series of invalid decisions. That is, having an updated scenario when planning or programming is important.

In addition to this timing aspect, accuracy can also be critical if it does not reach an ideal minimum level. Both for pointing and stock movements and moves, as a wrong registered volume can trigger a point of request for replacement at the right time.

However, this updated scenario premise often raises doubts about the frequency, detail and accuracy that is needed, looking from the perspective of programming . This type of information requirement can give the impression that we need a real -time reporting to be able to program, which is not true. At this point we need to see our current process and what we want for our future to see whether or not we are adequate.

If your company performs the schedule once a day at 7:30 am, it is at this time that you need to have the executed scenario updated. If there is a shift change just before this time and production leadership is organized to have all the notes released into the system until the exchange, it will be possible to make the programming quietly. If you have the same process established for an afternoon shift exchange, you can now do a reprogramming at this time as well.

From the perspective of proactive programming, which has a standardized frequency and an initial but robust degree of maturity, the lack of real -time note tends not to generate significant complications in their decisions.

Let's look at the example below, where we have a scenario 1 of an initial program, in the production principle, and then two scenarios of a next programming cycle (scenario 2 with notes via month and scenario 3 via ERP). We have the premise that the same will allow a more frequent update of production, as will reduce the risk of human errors by manual notes. Let's look at the situations under these two cases.

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Execution scenarios and notes [/caption]

For the case of greater delay in notes, which is Operation A in R1, in scenario 2, the information is more accurate and we note that there is already an extra point in this scenario than in scenario 3, which has a larger balance to produce yet. However, this did not change the sequence of this feature.
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In the case of wrong point, in Operation G in R3, it is noted that in scenario 3 (via ERP) pointed out more than due, generating a balance to produce smaller than in scenario 2. This causes the end forecast to be incorrect with a gap of a few hours. Again, in this specific example, this did not change the logic and programming sequence.
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In short, the sequence and logic are the same. If there is an ABC setup gain, in this sequence, this will be done even if the note is manual and there are some deviations of times and quantities. Of course if the error or delay of the note is too high, the sequence will change, yes. See some of the points that increase the risk of this happens:

• Cycle and process times very short, which generates many programming events, greatly increasing the sequence options and their dynamism (for example, an operation of a bottleneck time having 15-20 minutes process times, which will imply a very large volume of programmed orders in one shift);
• Very high volume of operations by order, with similar cycle times. If the factory has many macro operations by order (for example, 10 or more), and they are balanced, any small variation has a domino effect that can be significant. In cases of better -defined bottlenecks, these variations tend not to impact the sequence itself so much, as the system as a whole depends on some more specifically operations.
• Processes with many resource options to perform each operation. With more resource options, more possibilities for reprogramming exist as execution runs away from what was planned. If a product in a given operation only has, for example, 2 or 3 machine alternatives, this risk decreases a lot.
• High occurrence of non -programmed corrective and stop maintenance, which can significantly reduce programming adherence compared to what is actually delivered by production.
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That is, the proactive programming, the one that has a day and time to occur, can usually be performed without the presence of a month system , as long as we have a manual point of work performed in the same periodicity as we perform the programming (normally daily or by shift).
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Another important point to evaluate in the implementation of a month system, which consequently affects the frequency of notes, is the decision on what data collection points will be. It is often unfeasible to monitor all processes. For this, it is worth understanding that processes are more critical in terms of capacity and reliability , these are probably those who should have greater control and deserve to receive the investment. The others often receive notes for the backflush , which considers that if a later operation has already been pointed out, then the previous one who does not have its own collection point has also been performed in practice. The ideal minimum is to position these collection points so that a production order is no more than one shift without receiving any notes at any stage.
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Still, even with a stable proactive programming, we want to be able to perform a reprogramming at another time when an unforeseen demand or supply arises, which we can call reactive. This type of programming is useful for resolving unforeseen situations, seeing all the impacts that a change in a production order can generate in a factory as a whole. However, it should not be frequent, especially if we are making a modification in the short -term frozen horizon, which should be changed as little as possible, as making substantial modifications constantly in the planes we take to the factory makes programming "nervous". We use this term because if the programmer is exchanging the time production priorities with the leaders of the ground floor, the reliability on that plan will be lost and the confusion and potential errors will increase a lot. That is, it is the type of alternative to put the stripe "use in moderation".
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A programming process cannot want to set up with the main focus on this reactivity to the very short -term unforeseen events. Usually those who need to trigger this kind of (re) action has a bigger problem behind it that generates this unpredictability, whether a flawed maintenance plan that causes many machine breaks, whether a lack of coordination between commercial and PPCP , causing priority changes constantly. APS entry often helps stabilize these processes involving more areas, and precisely so it begins with a lower frequency to make all parts get used to the new model.
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Even with this precautions, as a maturity is gained, a decision on demand at a critical moment made in an assertive and rapid manner is very valuable. But now, for reactive programming, do I need to have a month previously? Many industries already have a standard procedure of notes (ERP even) at the end of each unit of motion (pallet, coil, cashier, etc.) or at the end of each operation of a production order. If the process cycle times we want to monitor are not too long, to the point that the complete processing of an order operation exceeds 2/3 hours, it is very likely that the on -demand reprogramming is already possible. You will not be assertive 100% of the time, but it will be mostly (remembering the example of the 3 scenarios we show).
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A monthly solution, in addition to its intrinsic advantages of providing greater control, comes to give more speed, accuracy and control for this whole process, allowing us to count on assertive reprogramming with increasing frequency (if this increase makes sense and productive). At the same time, this does not exclude our traditional process from a daily and/or weekly program, in which you will assemble your plan in a more proactive and structured way. Thus, the month improves reactive programming, but is not essential for the proactive. We can see below a graph with the evolution of programming with the maturity gain and the entry of a month system.

Where to start?

But then, even knowing that we don't need one to deploy the other and vice versa, where do you start? This question is frequent.
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The answer is easy to get when understanding the company's priority. Within an OEE analysis, if the productivity focus is on performance, the month will be able to show where you are leaving something to be desired and why. However, if your biggest problem is availability, if there is a long time waiting, high setups and drowns, APS will be the solution that will address these problems. If you have very critical maintenance problems, the month can be a great way to work with predictive maintenance. If you have a lot of demand variation and need to simulate scenarios, the APS will do it. If you feel productivity pains, you don't know where your factory's problems are, you have no idea of ​​their dimensions and seek a complete diagnosis, start with the month. But if you already know where these problems are usually and want to know what to do, proposedly to decision making, start with the APS.
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Factories are usually managed by engineers. And engineers have a control craze, they want that diagnosis in the comma. My tip is to pay attention to this perfectionism, as it is worth a regular biopsy with a concrete prognosis than a perfect autopsy.

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