What Is APS Software?

Opcenter APS Preferred Sequence

The basic difference between planning software and scheduling software is that planning systems are bucketed (monthly, weekly, daily) and cannot preserve operation sequences within the time bucket. True scheduling systems are bucketless, preserving sequencing, and capable of generating work-to or dispatch lists. Assigning an operation to a resource is a key function for achieving operational efficiency and optimizing performance. Detailed scheduling uses a shorter time horizon and a much more detailed process route than a planning system.

Advanced Planning is a strategic decision support tool that combines forecast and long-term orders that target stock levels and bucketed resource capacities to ensure that future demand is met. Planning can be executed in finite or infinite capacity mode, and planning time periods can be days, weeks, months, or a combination of all three. If used together with the scheduling system, detailed production schedule information can be sent back to the planning system and this will override planned volume with scheduled volume. The master production schedule (MPS) can then be recalculated using the production schedule as the base for new results.

Advanced Scheduling is a finite capacity tool based on a detailed model of the plant. It takes into account the actual availability of resources and considers multiple constraints to produce an achievable schedule. It is a scheduling tool primarily for manufacturers that need to schedule machines, production lines and resources, but is also used in services and logistics. Typically, the input is manufacturing orders that have a process route associated with each one, defining the operational steps to make the product. The user then can load the orders onto individual resources using scheduling rules and interacting with the schedule using the Gantt charts and generated plots. A typical output would be a dispatch list for each resource.