Digitalization and globalization are presenting manufacturing companies with new challenges. Networked systems, large amounts of data, automated processes and market uncertainty are making the planning and control of production processes more difficult. Companies are faced with the challenge of finding the right solution to map their production planning efficiently and sustainably. In addition to SAP PP/DS, the French company Dassault Systemes also offers DELMIA Quintiq software for production planning and control. An overview of the structure and objectives of both solutions.
Four steps in production planning
The digital supply chain networks all components of manufacturing companies in central systems and enables a fully digital supply chain that can be optimized, adapted and evaluated at any time. Catalyzed by the worldwide increase in consumption as well as global production and logistics processes, the requirement arose to continuously optimize and fine-tune production processes, automate planning and react both quickly and flexibly to events in the supply chain.
Production planning and control is a multi-stage process that takes into account the processes from receipt of the order through to delivery to the customer on time. A production planning process can look like this:
In the first step, a customer's order is received and recorded in the ERP. Among other things, material requirements, delivery date, resource availability and other parameters are checked in the ATP check. An order confirmation can then be sent directly to the customer, for example.
In the second step, various functions such as the net requirements calculation are carried out in order to provide the warehouse or purchasing department with information about the material requirements.
In the third planning step, an infinite, rough planning of the production processes can take place. Resource availability is not taken into account and order processes are sent to the relevant machines on the required date.
The subsequent finite planning optimizes the planned production steps with regard to resource availability and the desired or even required delivery date, refines the sequence planning on the basis of special heuristics and enables the setting of many different parameters to optimize production planning within a specific time horizon.
SAP and Dassault Systemes offer their own solutions for production and detailed planning, which map the essential steps of production planning.
SAP PP/DS
Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling (SAP PP/DS) and Integrated Business Planning (IBP) are SCM solutions in the SAP environment. In ECC systems, Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling (SCM-APO-PPDS) is part of the APO application modules, while it is directly integrated in S/4HANA (embedded PP/DS).
Production and detailed planning (PP/DS) is used to generate the coverage of product requirements, procurement proposals for in-house production or external procurement, thus planning resource allocation and order deadlines in detail and optimizing their processes. Resource and component availability can be taken into account. PP/DS was primarily developed for the planning of critical products. Critical products are those that are expected to have long replenishment times or are manufactured using bottleneck resources. PP/DS can therefore be used to create realistic, feasible production plans, reduce throughput times and increase on-time delivery. Better coordination of resources, production and procurement can also increase the throughput of products and reduce inventory costs.
The functional scope of the software can be broken down into the following seven key components:
PP planning procedures control, on a product-specific basis, which planning action the system carries out when a planning-relevant event occurs in the system. For example, planning can be carried out automatically when a product's requirements change. PP/DS therefore reacts to information outside its own module and thus to events in the supply chain.
The production planning run is used to carry out heuristics, detailed planning functions or the optimization of a large number of objects. This makes it possible to execute several heuristics or functions one after the other, for example procurement planning for products with a planning indicator, i.e. change planning.
The solution of planning problems that can arise through automatic planning or the manual planning of an important product are among the functions of interactive planning. This provides various tools, such as the product planning board or the detailed planning planning board, which enable interactive planning on a graphical user interface.
Detailed planning automatically schedules orders to resources and can take various planning constraints into account. These include, for example, component availability or resource availability.
Special planning algorithms that solve planning problems for specific objects such as products, resources or orders in interactive planning or in the production planning process are referred to as heuristics. These include, for example, detailed planning strategies, which are widely used in PP/DS. They enable a detailed setting of restrictions and requirements for production.
With the help of optimization, the allocation of resources can be improved with regard to certain criteria such as setup time optimization, setup cost optimization and the planning situation, thereby solving certain detailed planning problems.
Pegging establishes relationships between the stock, receipt and requirement elements of a product within a location or plant. Based on these relationships, the system can identify quantity and scheduling problems and forward scheduling changes to other levels in production planning.
IBP
SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) is an application based on SAP HANA for future-oriented supply chain management. SAP IBP helps to prevent missing information and unstructured communication between the links in the supply chain. The application is cloud-based and uses the in-memory technology of SAP HANA. It combines functionalities for Sales & Operations, Inventory and Procurement in an integrated planning environment. Users can access real-time dashboards, detailed analyses, interactive simulations and Excel-enabled planning tables.
Functional areas include IBP Sales & Operations (SAP SOP), a flexible planning tool that uses historical and forecast data for current planning. It supports the definition of sales targets and required capacities. IBP Demand is also used to forecast future customer requirements, IBP Inventory to optimize stock levels and IBP Supply & Response to manage the supply chain.
The main benefits of SAP IBP are real-time planning and control, improved collaboration between departments and increased efficiency in supply chain management.
SAP IBP enables companies to adapt their planning processes and meet the challenges of the modern business world.
Quintiq
DELMIA Quintiq focuses on the holistic consideration of all processes in production planning and control. The product line includes three different products: Quintiq Macro Planner, Quintiq Company Planner and Quintiq Detailed Scheduler.
Macro Planner
The Macro Planner focuses on the holistic optimization of the supply chain, from purchasing to delivery. A characteristic feature of the Quintiq software is the modularity of the individual components. This means that holistic flow optimization can also be used in isolation for critical parts of the supply chain - for example within a plant. Scenario modeling is the second module, which enables the simulation of different planning scenarios, their evaluation and comparison and thus the ability to react to any eventuality. The production planning and network design modules can be used to optimize production program planning, operational distribution planning and strategic processes within the company.
The objectives of the Macro Planner can be formulated as follows. Inventory is visible across the entire supply chain, an optimized product range and maximization of fulfilled orders by comparing many possible scenarios lead to achieved sales targets, control over the entire inventory is possible at any time, service requirements of sales and customers can be differentiated and cost efficiency for different supply scenarios can be weighed up. In summary, the Macro Planner is a tool that supports decision-makers and planners in the company in making critical decisions with maximum efficiency and foresight in a comprehensive process that leads to the desired results in the long term.
Company Planner
The Company Planner is used in medium-term production planning and control. The module provides support in situations where sales and production planning is complex and intransparent and planned quantities deviate from actual sales. With the help of the Company Planner, production downtimes, bottlenecks or excessive stock levels can be avoided or reduced. The primary goals of the Company Planner are to optimize customer order management, reduce throughput times and ensure material availability.
Detailed Scheduler
The Detailed Scheduler is used to significantly simplify operational detailed planning for an optimized production program. The flexible planning system makes it possible to create an order sequence for the flow of individual production steps, taking into account the necessary resource availability and restrictions. At the same time, the Detailed Scheduler can be used to display delivery times, lead times or stock levels and keep an eye on changes and developments in real time. This allows planning decisions to be subsequently compared with results, tracked and evaluated. The Detailed Scheduler therefore plays a central role in the short-term, flexible adjustment of production planning and in maximizing the productivity of the production chain.
The individual Quintiq modules can be used in combination or individually. For example, Macro Planner and Detailed Scheduler provide a complete solution for production planning that enables short-term adjustments to the production plan based on current business objectives, detects disruptions, minimizes waste and inventory and maximizes the productivity and efficiency of the production process. In addition, external factors such as market fluctuations, supplier management and scenario modeling, which are not directly part of the production chain but influence it, are taken into account and flexibly incorporated into production planning. Thanks to the intuitive visualization via the KPI dashboard, the most important goals can be kept in view at all times.
Both solutions cover the four steps of production planning, but also offer features and functions that differ from each other in terms of scope and objectives.
Quintiq or SAP PP/DS?
DELMIA Quintiq and SAP PP/DS are two different systems that share a common goal: the optimization and planning of production and supply chain processes. Both solutions cover the four steps of production planning, but also offer features and functions that differ from each other in terms of scope and objectives. For this reason, a direct comparison of the overall solutions is hardly possible and is therefore recommended for specific areas of production planning.
