In some cases users want to be able to combine several detailed scheduling models from different plants (or departments within one company) with a global capacity planning model.  In this case the demand generated from the capacity planning model may be sent to one or more plants or split between them.  Typically the global planner wants to know where best to make an order based on the capacity available.  In this case the global planner must be able to ‘interrogate’ each live schedule and choose the best based, on a range of criteria.  In effect the planner needs a ‘Capable to Promise’ (CTP) response from one or more live schedules without the local planner being involved.

Preactor has in-built communication and event based triggering to connect global planning to multiple detailed schedules providing a real time supply chain execution decision support system.

Demand can be sent to each plant capable of making the product which automatically provides a CTP result based on the current load, available capacity and local constraints.  Based on business rules such as minimum transportation and manufacturing cost, on-time delivery, etc, the planner can then decide on which plant should be used.

Preactor can also be set up so that multiple planning and scheduling systems can have real-time communication between them.  For example one plant may produce materials for another plant to process.  Using the example in the schematic above as an example, a CTP enquiry would need to get a response from Plant 1 before sending a CTP enquiry to the next plant in the supply chain.  Also any delay to the completion of an order at Plant 1 would need to update Plant 2 so other orders there can be potentially brought forward to use spare capacity.

View a Distributed Scheduling Presentation (pdf)