Using 
For the Agile Enterprise
Orchestrate offers an easy to use, affordable, planning and scheduling solution for developing key business plans - from Supply Chain Optimisation (SCO) to Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) for the shop floor. It offers a real alternative to using overcomplicated ERP modules or basic spreadsheets.
In today’s highly competitive world, there is an increasing pressure for companies to concentrate on continuous improvements, responding quickly to changes in customer demand. At a high level, companies need to constantly review their supply chain planning, regularly assessing which factories or which production lines are required to best service their customers. At the production level, companies must review factory performance, so as to schedule and manage the factory more effectively. The requirement to plan and to review the plan’s underlying assumptions has never been greater.
Yet, from the multi-national to the SME, this drive for improvement is severely hindered by one key factor - the lack of effective planning tools. The fact is that despite the widespread adoption of ERP systems by business, when it comes to planning and scheduling most companies find significant gaps in their core system functionality. These gaps are especially evident at the top level, such as planning production around various plants, or inventory distribution, and at the shop floor planning and scheduling level. Moreover, the vast majority of companies recognise that this problem exists. A review of any recent IT in Industry survey will show that companies are either looking to get more out of their existing systems, or looking for something outside their existing systems.
The result is that despite having made major investments in IT, for many companies, key planning and scheduling activities are still undertaken manually on a planning board or using a spreadsheet. Often, spreadsheets become so complicated that they are hard to understand and it takes almost a full week, to produce next week’s plan.
Despite the obvious drawbacks with this approach, managers typically believe that specialised planning modules are just too complicated in terms of integration and application, and over priced, and that the more general planning systems are inappropriate.
Orchestrate turns this argument completely on its head. With its development, Production Modelling has produced a cost effective and easy-to-use solution that can effectively help any company in various areas of planning and scheduling. Using Orchestrate, customers have been able to deliver tangible business improvements. Read More...
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