S-Plan APS: Campaign Manager
Product Overview
The Campaign Manager is Greycon's block scheduling module that provides medium-term planning capabilities that feed the constraint-based scheduling engine with another series of unique constraints. The Campaign Manager provides a configurable and adjustable multi-level hierarchy designed to represent and to constraint the production cycle, block, runs, etc.
Campaign Manager brings medium-term planning capabilities to the finite capacity scheduler. Through a flexible three-tiered capacity management scheme, it enables users to maximize the utilization of their critical resources by harnessing recurring production patterns.
Campaign Manager operates on three levels: blocks (or campaigns), runs and orders allocated to the workcenter. In this three-level hierarchy, a block can contain many runs and runs contain many orders.
Each block possesses a common filter, which defines the runs that are contained within it. In a paper mill, the filter could be color; thus, all the runs and orders produced within the block would share a common color.
Runs are groups of orders that can be produced together to reduce waste and maximize production efficiency. Based on S-Plan properties, the user defines the common denominators for each run; these are the criteria against which orders are allocated to the runs. By carefully sequencing runs to reduce switchovers, it is possible to increase the efficiency of the workcentre. The length of a run can be predetermined, although there is the flexibility to vary run length. This is complemented by an order allocation facility based on S-Plan order properties (including the capability to handle such situations as allocation limits by sales office or salesperson). The user can decide to manually allocate orders or to select the automated order allocation feature.
Campaign Manager will also account for the finishing estimates (the time it takes for subsequent processes).
If appropriate, the trim efficiency of a runs can be evaluated using the QuickTrim™ tool, or each run can be fully trimmed using X-Trim™.
Campaign Manager is multi-user aware and therefore supports centralised planning.
Campaign Manager also links to the Greycon Run Optimisation module, which creates optimised blocks and runs.
