Advanced Production Scheduler

The Advanced Production Scheduler (“APS“) is a graphical planning tool with a simple and effective MS-Windows based based GUI that is complementary to the DIAMES family of products.

The APS identifies problems related to deadlines and the sequence of operations. The production planner deals with these problems by optimizing the interdependent production programs of the different work centers. For this purpose, the planner can quickly and easily modify the sequence of shop order operations or eliminate bottle-necks related to the respective production resource by transferring the respective shop order(s) to other work center(s).

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The graphical interface of the APS offers a choice of two views: shop orders that have already been assigned in a view that is sorted per work centre, i.e. the effective production schedule, released shop orders that have not yet been assigned, sorted in shop order sequence.

In an online dialog session with the DIAMES Server the planner selects work centers, including the respective production schedules or production orders that have unassigned shop orders.
Frequently required selections may be saved to
separate profiles. The starting date and period for the view are defined by the user as required.

The sequential status of the different operations with respect to the other operations of the same shop order is highlighted in color to indicate “too early“, “o.k.“, “overdue“ or “sequence error“. This also applies to the up-to-date work status. Other functions like “compact“ display, “forced insertion“ or “recalculate priorities“, etc. modify multiple operations simultaneously.

The user can retrieve or return up-to-date data from/to the DIAMES server at any time, either manually or even automatically under certain circumstances. This ensures that the schedule that is displayed by the APS is always up-to-date, matching the real-world production schedule and progress.

The DIAMES server validates all APS transactions.

aps-eng02The color that the APS uses to display the different operations indicates how well the progress of the operation matches the respective schedule, as well as the relationship with respect to a preceding operation that depends directly on the current shop order operation.

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A context menu is displayed when you right-click an operation. The context menu provides access to functions like “sort order“ or “compact“ display, etc.

A single click with the left mouse key on an operation displays details of the selected key-information at the bottom of the respective view; e.g.:

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aps-eng06A double-click on an operation opens a text box containing detailed information on the planned and actual properties of the respective operation.

The centre of every graphical view is surrounded by eight navigation icons.

These icons display the status of the respective operation in the sector that is currently not visible.
A click on such an icon displays the respective operation together with its environment in the applicable color.Shift-schedules are displayed in the background as a colored grid.

The APS retrieves the list of weekly events and special days from the DIAMES server for this purpose.

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