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Preactor®
Preactor is a family of planning and scheduling solutions, ranging from FCS to APS to SCE. With more than 5500 systems sold to date throughout the world, Preactor is the world's leading solution in automated scheduling. Preactor integrates with major ERP systems, and its open architecture is ideal for legacy ERP solutions.
Quinn & Associates is the Master Reseller for North America, with over 7 years experience with the Preactor line of products. As a Preactor Solution Provider, Quinn & Associates is certified as an elite Preactor specialist.
Users of Preactor have benefited from:
- Reduced makespan
- Lower material inventories
- Improved productivity
- Improved customer service
- Reduced time spent in scheduling and expediting
About
Preactor®
The most common tool used by schedulers is a simple
planning board where work is allocated to resources in time
periods such as an hour, day or week. However this is a static
decision support tool trying to cope with a dynamic problem.
How long will the schedule last
before a rush order appears, re-work is required, operators
report sick, a machine breaks down, or demand does not match
the forecast ? Each of these will blow a hole in the production
plan and the scheduler can spend endless time re-assigning
work, changing priorities or altering process routes to meet
promised delivery dates.
A Question of Balance
This
is the schedulers' art. They must constantly try to maintain
the balance between demand and capacity. On the demand side
the 'flow' of work can vary due to new orders arriving, changes
in priority, and stock orders launched against forward forecasts.
'Leakage's' take place as deliveries are made, forecasts are
translated in to real demand and orders cancelled.
Increased capacity can be achieved
by bringing forward the launch time for orders to utilize
under used resources. Process routes can be changed to avoid
bottlenecks. Working hours can be extended or work sub-contracted,
and batches of work can be split. Reduced capacity is caused
by breakdowns, rework, sequence dependent set-up times and
the inevitable (wandering) bottlenecks.
What
is finite capacity scheduling?
Finite Capacity scheduling is a process whereby a
production plan consisting of a sequence of operations to
fulfill orders is generated based on the real capacity of
resources. These can be be machines, operators, tooling or
anything which is a constraint on the production process.
What
happens now?
Most planning systems assume sufficient resources are available
when required, i.e. resources have infinite capacity. An MRP
system typically takes the orders for products, breaks them
down into component parts and calculates when to start making
them based on the individual lead times. No account is taken
of the current available capacity of resources.
At the same time that the launch
time for batches are calculated, materials needed are ordered
to arrive in time for the work to start. If there is a delay
in production upstream of a particular operation then the
material will be ordered too early. With no concept of bottlenecks
available to the planning system, resources become overloaded,
queues of work get longer and work in progress increases.
Because jobs must join the queues at each process step, orders
take longer to make progress, expected lead times are too
optimistic and deliveries are late.....
Sound Familiar ?
How
will finite capacity scheduling help?
Using finite capacity scheduling, operations are only planned
when resources are available. Materials are ordered only when
they are needed. Inventory levels fall and bottleneck resources
are not overloaded. Work in progress remains at a relatively
constant level, lead times are more predictable and delivery
dates are more reliable. In this way production management
spends less time progress chasing and can concentrate on the
every day job of balancing, often variable demand, with the
capacity available.
Why
Preactor® ?
For manufacturing
companies who require greater control of their operations,
increase customer service while reducing costs, Preactor®
is a PC based scheduling package that provides the planner
with an interactive decision support tool that balances demand
and capacity. Unlike spreadsheets and MRP software, Preactor®
can deal with the complexities of a wide range of manufacturing
systems, is easy to setup and use, generates schedules in
minutes and can be installed at a very competitive cost.
Who
uses Preactor
First
released in 1993, and continually enhanced and improved, more
than 3500 systems have been sold to over 600 companies in
a wide range of verticals across five continents. These companies
cover the A - Z of business sectors.
- Automotive & aerospace
- Capital, white, & FMC
goods
- Chemicals, cosmetics, and
paints
- Electrical assembly
and electronics
- Food & beverages
- Furniture & woodworking
- Injection molding & extrusions
- Job shops, press shops
- Machine assembly & equipment
- Metals melting & processing
- Packaging & printing
- Pharmaceuticals & healthcare
- Repairs & maintenance
- Services, training, &
academia
- Transportation & distribution
Hardware Requirements and the Web
Preactor runs on a PC under Windows 2000 and XP. The minimum requirements for the PC are a Pentium IV processor with 512 MB of RAM. Preactor can be made web enabled using Citrix Metaframe technology or Terminal Server if users of Preactor Master Scheduling Systems and Viewers need to access and use the software remotely. In addition Preactor has a web publishing module whereby Gantt charts and reports can be produced in HTML format and placed on a web page for others to view the information.
Implementation
Your own staff can implement Preactor by first attending training courses. Or you can choose to use some additional help to customize the solution. This can come from the company that supplied the Preactor software or from accredited Preactor Solution Providers.
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