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S-Plan APS: CTP Manager

Product Overview

The CTP Manager provides the customer sales representatives the first point of interaction to determine acceptable delivery dates. Market conditions and customer priorities can be configured to determine order acceptance and scheduling rules. The CTP Manager is designed to plug into the order entry system.

What Is It?

CTP Manager is an extension to standard S-Plan functionality designed to provide customer sales representatives the first point of interaction to determine acceptable delivery dates.

S-Plan APS: CTP Manager

Key Points

  • It recognizes that the system response should and does depend on market conditions. Different answers are produced depending on the market conditions, which are defined by product family and period.
  • It recognizes that not all customers are equal. Different answers are produced depending on the customer ranking. However a promise is a promise and only supervisors are allowed to break existing promises.
  • It recognizes that not all types of inquiries are the same. Depending on the circumstances an inquiry can be put in a "shopping cart" for future analysis by a supervisor.
  • It recognizes, in this day and age, a discipline is necessary for controlling changes to orders.
  • It integrates with Greycon's SoftBlock,T Campaign Manager and Trim Acceptance Optimizer for rapid what-if assessment of the potential impact of any inquiry. It is engineered to multi-user standards, based on Microsoft's Message Queuing System (MSMQ).
  • It provides a platform for customer / machinery specific validation, e.g. this order goes to the Heidelberg press no. 1 of this customer and this only accepts 3" cores with a maximum outer diameter of 40".

Advantages

  • By using S-Plan as the scheduling engine, and unlike conventional block scheduling systems, the system takes into account as many stages of production as necessary, including all finishing and transportation.
  • The system automatically tries multiple alternative scenarios, including multiple paper machines and alternative transportation modes. The user is presented with alternatives, before deciding which one to accept.
  • The system provides a coherent, enterprise-wide, platform for analyzing scheduling decisions.
  • Integration with SoftBlock scheduling provides optimization-based intelligent run creation

How Does It Work with S-Plan?

The Inquiry function resides in the same data space, thus allowing the suitably authorized user unlimited access to what-if facilities and schedule evaluation.

The system can be deployed in any of the three architectures:

  1. Traditional two-tier client-server architecture (no multi-user functionality)
  2. Three-tier client-server architecture (multi-user functionality)
  3. Windows Terminal Server / Citrix (multi-user functionality)

Customization

Because the Inquiry function is delivered as a calculated property in a Dynamic Link Library, the logic can easily be customized for special requirements.