7 Myths about PHC

Something that draws the attention of academics and professionals is the lack of bibliography specifically on the subject of APS. And basically what you find on the internet are materials with a commercial bias (a bias that we try not to damage content like this on our blog, but anyway, here we are). The natural consequence of this is that the general public's knowledge of the subject is limited, and they end up learning about APS in basically two ways: in practice, by actually using and/or implementing such a solution in their work with the help of a specialist consultancy; or by word of mouth, by talking to people in the first group or even by attending a talk at an event. And this is how myths arise. Let's take a look at some of them:1 With APS, I'll stop delaying my orders and generating stock-outs.Contrary to the joke about putting 50 clowns in a cab, a factory doesn't have infinite capacity. Possibly the great trick of APS is to actually work with finite capacity, i.e. to consider the limits and restrictions of a production system in order to be able to assess what it will be possible to produce within the desired deadlines or not. At the same time, APS will try to do this in an optimized way within the chosen heuristics, which really does generate more efficiency and allows you to do more with the same (or less). However, this last advantage makes some people think that delays will simply disappear, as will stock-outs. In some cases there is clearly a lack of capacity and, even if the factory's schedule is optimized, it won't be enough to meet demand. In these cases, the APS will end up being useful for simulating capacity increases in specific sectors and helping with Capacity Planning so that, in the medium to long term, delays and shortages really are eliminated.2.The scheduling process withinAPSsoftware is something that is constantly being improved, starting from a practical and effective process for PPCP to have agility and good results from the ground up, and gradually evolving with automations that are only picked up through continuous use of the solution. Eventually, we can get to the point of generating a totally autonomous schedule that doesn't depend on human intervention. In the vast majority of cases, the APS user carries out the programming once or twice a day, and when there is a major unforeseen event in the factory, whether it's a machine breakdown or a fall order. It is also important that there is no constant minute-by-minute reprogramming, otherwise the programming becomes, as we call it, very "nervous", changing sequence all the time. In this sense, it's good to have a frozen programming horizon and try to avoid continuous changes to it. At the end of the day, if there are any short-term problems on the shop floor, it's the factory itself that will solve them.3. APS only works if we have 100% of the engineering records up to date and correct.This is possibly the most recurrent observation and the one that will never be true. No industry will always have 100% of its records correct and up-to-date (here we are talking about engineering records such as manufacturing routings with process times and resource alternatives, as well as product structures). As a factory is also constantly changing, even a great study can be out of date after just 3 months. To minimize the impact of these imperfections that are intrinsic to reality, the ideal is to control programming adherence, i.e. how well they are executing what is being programmed. If this adherence is low, the main reasons could be poorly conceived scheduling rules, resistance on the shop floor to following the schedule due to power struggles, incoherent production performance indicators, inefficiencies, or times and resource groups with registration problems. By isolating the other reasons, you can identify where your registers may have the most problems and set up task forces to resolve them. Finally, the use of APS is also very effective for identifying problems because it is very visual. If, for example, a production time is much longer than it should be, the Gantt chart itself will point out the problem right away, showing an operation that is superior to the others.[caption id="attachment_2065" align="aligncenter" width="522"]

If you rely on all the records before you start, you'll probably never start.[/caption]4. APS will help me analyze my historical efficiency (OEE) and diagnose what problems I have in production.The word "scheduling" already implies that it's about the future. An APS system is focused on scheduling orders/demand in the future period. In other words, the past is not the protagonist in this process. Of course, it can help, especially the short-term past. NEO uses short-term shop floor notes to generate views of scheduling adherence (the KPI mentioned in the previous section), which is extremely useful. However, you can't expect APS to store a history of years and provide detailed analysis of this history. Technically, this is entirely possible, but it's another scope of solution, much more geared towards Production Control and MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems).5. APS only works if you have a Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) solution in place. An MES system is important in order to have an overview of production in real time (or as up-to-date as possible), but, as in myth 2, scheduling is normally carried out once or twice a day. In other words, if the key-user schedules at 8 a.m. and 1 p.m., what is really needed is for the scenario of what has been produced up to that point to be up to date, and not for everything to be up to date at all times. This way, notes at specific times in each shift, or notes by movement unit (pallet, reel, etc.) are enough for good fine scheduling in APS.6. APS is not useful for automotive assembly lines.An automotive assembly line is not really suited to the traditional use of APS, but there are advantages to using it. There won't be the very complex synchronization of resources and operations caused by cross-flows in production that occurs in other segments, but there are critical problems of synchronization of materials. And APS performs this synchronization and helps all the processes adjacent to the assembly lines to serve it in the best possible way, identifying when inputs are needed in each operation on the line, as well as when changes to the line are essential due to labor restrictions, which can cause line stoppages and are dealt with in APS.At the end of the day, due to the criticality of keeping the "factory drum" efficient at all times, the use of APS to synchronize materials and control constraints is very useful.[caption id="attachment_2064" align="aligncenter" width="610"]

Automotive line[/caption]7. I don't need APS because we've implemented the Lean Manufacturing System here. Incredibly, concepts that should work together synergistically are often confused and perceived as conflicting. Not only is the Lean Manufacturing System something more than a methodology, but a philosophy, it can also collaborate greatly with APS and vice versa. The very example of myth 6 already shows us this, inserting APS into an environment that traditionally breathes Lean. At the same time, the adherence analyses we saw in myth 3 can be the raw material for organizing a Kaizenblitz; Rapid Tool Change can constantly update the setup times used by APS, and so on. At the same time, Lean alone can't deal with the extremely dynamic bottlenecks that are increasingly common in production environments where the volume of SKUs and product diversification is skyrocketing, meaning that, depending on the mix to be produced, one sector can become overloaded and another idle. This dynamism requires a quick and intelligent response that only an expert system can provide, with heuristics and simulation power capable of adapting to every situation and moment in the factories. Of course, these are just some of the myths (yes, there are many more!) and their "believers" don't always defend them tooth and nail. But we note, whether implicitly or explicitly, that these are questions that are on the minds of those who study or practice APS. The reflection is worthwhile to understand what not to expect and what not to fear from it.Have you heard any other myths?! Share it with us here![noptin-form id=2822]