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In the last decade, Cloud Computing (CC) and Advanced Planning Systems (APS) are two emerging topics. However, no comprehensive model that considers both topics at a conceptual level exists. Purpos...

UPS, the leading logistics provider in the world, and long known for its penchant for efficiency, embarked on a journey to streamline and modernize its pickup and delivery operations in 2003. This journey resulted in a suite of systems, including a meta-heuristic optimization system, which it called “On Road Integrated Optimization and Navigation” (ORION). Every day, ORION provides an optimized route for each of UPS’ 55,000 U.S. drivers based on the packages to be picked up and delivered on that day. The system creates routes that maintain the desired level of consistency from day to day. To bring this transformational system from concept to reality, UPS instituted extensive change in management practices to ensure that both users and executives would accept the system. Costing more than $295 million to build and deploy, ORION is expected to save UPS $300–$400 million annually. ORION is also contributing to the sustainability efforts of UPS by reducing its CO2 emissions by 100,000 tons annually. By providing a foundation for a new generation of advanced planning systems, ORION is transforming the pickup and delivery operations at UPS.

Publisher Summary It is important to identify different types of supply chains to derive fitting management strategies. Planning systems, which try to implement these strategies operatively, also have to be tailored to the particular requirements of the type of supply chain under consideration. The chapter introduces a typology of supply chains, which is illustrated by two contrasting examples: consumer goods manufacturing and computer assembly. A general framework for deriving the corresponding planning tasks of the respective supply chain type is provided. Planning concepts that fit the planning requirements can be designed by means of hierarchical planning (HP). The HP concepts, including recent developments, are reviewed in the chapter. It is shown that a common modular architecture, which is along the lines of HP, is underlying all the advanced planning systems (APS) and the functions of the typical modules are discussed.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) has been a major advancement in production planning and control (PPC), building on material requirements planning (MRP) and manufacturing resource planning (MRP II). To improve planning solutions, advanced planning systems (APS) have been offered since the nineties. Despite these developments and recent developments in digitalization, spreadsheets still play a major role in PPC. This paper describes three cases in which different capacity planning and production scheduling decisions are supported by spreadsheets. This results in a list of issues arising from the use of spreadsheets in PPC. While the advancements in PPC research have been clear over the last twenty years, the cases do not make use of these advancements in practice and we do not foresee that all spreadsheets will be replaced by APS or other digitalization efforts over the years. Therefore, while we focus more research efforts on concepts like digitalization and Industry 4.0, we must not forget that spreadsheet applications still dominates over ERP and APS as the main support for planners in their daily work. © 2018, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control). Hosting by Elsevier Ltd.

Many ERP systems support configurable materials. Due to an ever increasing number of product variants the benefits of this approach are well understood. However, these implementations are not standardized. In this article we propose a new standard interface for the exchange of configuration data. This would lead to further benefits as systems as Advanced Planning systems could better use manufacturing flexibility while web shops as Amazon could easily integrate manufacturers of complex products with much reduced implementation effort.

Purpose: To evaluate planning quality of Stereotactic body Radiotherapy (SBRT) with multiple lungmetastases generated by the Pinnacle and Tomotherapy planning systems, respectively. Methods and Materials: Nine randomly selected patients diagnosed with non-small cell lung carcinoma with multiple lesions were planned with Philips Pinnacle (version 9.2, Fitchburg, WI) and Tomotherapy (version 4.2, Madison, WI), respectively. Both coplanar and non-coplanar IMRT plans were generated on Pinnacle system. A total dose of 60 Gy was prescribed to cover 95% of Planning Target Volume (PTV) in 3 fractions based on the RTOG0236 protocol prescription [1]. All plans with single isocenter setting were used for multiple lesions planning. A set of nine static beams were used for Pinnacle plansusing Direct Machine Parameters Optimization (DMPO) algorithm of RTOT0236 dose constraints. Planning outcomes such as minimum and mean doses, V95, D95 (95% of target volume receivesprescription dose), D5, and D1 to PTV, maximum dose to heart, esophagus, cord, trachea, brachial plexus, rib, chest wall, and liver, mean dose toliver, total lung, right and left lung, volume of chest wall receives 30 Gy, volume of lungs receives 5 Gy and 20 Gy (V5 and V20), conformity index (CI) and heterogeneity index (HI) were all reported for evaluation. Results: Mean volume of PTV was 37.77 ± 23.4 cm3. D95 of PTV with Tomotherapy, coplanar, non-coplanar plan was 60.2 ± 0.3 Gy, 58.6 ± 1.2 Gy, and 59.1 ± 0.7 Gy, respectively. Mean dose to PTV was lower for Tomotherapy (p 5 (p 1 (p = 0.001). CI was higher with Tomotherapyplans (p p 5 which needs more attention for toxicity analysis.

Advanced Planning Systems (APS) are core for many production companies that require the optimization of its operations using applications and tools such as planning, scheduling, logistic, among others. Because of this, process optimization experts are required to develop those models and, therefore, are stakeholders for this system's domain. Since the core of the APSs are models to improve the company performance, the knowledge of this group of stakeholders can enhance the APS architecture evaluation. However, methods available for this task require participants with extensive Software Engineering (SE) understanding. This article proposes a modification to ATAM (Architecture Trade-off Analysis Method) to include process optimization experts during the evaluation. The purpose is to create an evaluation methodology centred on what these stakeholders value the most in an APS, to capitalize their expertise on the area and obtain valuable information and assessment regarding the APS, model s and solvers interoperability.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how standardized advanced planning systems (APS) can be used for solving planning problems at tactical and strategic levels, and to identify the perceived effects of using APS.Design/methodology/approachMultiple case studies involving three cases using APS software for strategic network planning and master production scheduling are conducted. Comparative analysis explores how the planning situation, the model design and use of the APS impact the perceived planning effects.FindingsFindings show how APS support cost‐optimized strategic network design in one case and how efficiency, capacity utilization and delivery service problems were decreased in two cases using APS in global master planning processes. The cases show how APS supports cross‐functional integration and supply chain commitment to a common plan. Research directions are suggested about the feasibility of APS in situations with various planning complexities, how design of the optimization model creates complexity and affects the planning process, data gathering requirements when using APS, the role and design of the planning organization, and how to achieve positive planning effects, such as finding global optimum and single plan commitment.Research limitations/implicationsThe approach is descriptive and explorative. Only three cases are studied.Practical implicationsThe findings present experiences of APS usage and identify issues to consider when using APS and potential benefits to gain from usage.Originality/valueThe practical use of APS is low and the knowledge about how it impacts supply chain planning and performance is unexplored. The findings of this paper fill some of these gaps.

Resumo Apesar de o processo de S&OP (Sales and Operations Planning) não ser uma prática nova nas empresas, principalmente naquelas de grande porte, ainda é tema de estudos nas suas práticas e ferramentas computacionais de apoio. Modelos e ferramentas computacionais focadas para o auxílio no processo de S&OP são utilizadas e podem contribuir para a melhoria da qualidade da sua execução e dos seus resultados. As ferramentas mais comuns são aquelas baseadas em planilhas eletrônicas, e as mais sofisticadas, em técnicas de pesquisa operacional inseridas em sistemas APS (Advanced Planning Systems). A partir da revisão bibliográfica realizada sobre teoria e técnicas computacionais usadas para o auxílio do processo de S&OP, foi identificada a ausência de estudos relacionados ao uso de Dinâmica de Sistemas (System Dynamics). Adicionalmente, a revisão aponta a necessidade de estudos relacionados à integração de análise econômica e financeira durante a elaboração dos planos agregados e o uso de variáveis probabilísticas no processo que possibilitem a análise estatística no sentido de fornecer planos mais confiáveis. Outra questão relevante observada é que os gestores que participam do processo de S&OP nem sempre têm uma visão global de todas as variáveis e restrições envolvidas neste processo, assim observa-se também que as técnicas e ferramentas utilizadas para execução do processo de S&OP não oferecem uma visão holística das atividades e variáveis envolvidas. Com isso, neste trabalho, é proposto um modelo de Simulação de Dinâmica de Sistemas que proporcione uma visão holística para o processo de S&OP e que permita a integração com os processos da área financeira e o uso de variáveis probabilísticas. A avaliação dos resultados das simulações realizadas com o modelo, apoiada por um projeto de experimentos (DoE), mostra que os planos gerados são compatíveis se comparados com a prática empresarial, com a vantagem de tratar a análise econômica e financeira simultaneamente e ainda possibilitar a geração de inúmeros cenários de planos de S&OP. Abstract Despite the S&OP (Sales and Operations Planning) process not being a new procedure in enterprises, especially the large size, it is still a research subject for their practices and computational tools support. Computational models and tools focused to aid the S&OP process are used and can contribute to improve the quality of its implementation and results. The most common tools are those based on spreadsheets; and the most sophisticated ones are based on operational research techniques inserted in Advanced Planning Systems (APS). The literature review on theory and computational techniques used to aid the S&OP process identified a lack of studies related to the use of System Dynamics. Additionally, the review indicates the need for economic and financial analysis integration studies during the preparation of aggregates plans and the use of probabilistic variables in the process enabling the statistical analysis in order to provide more reliable plans. Another relevant issue observed is that managers involved in the S&OP process do not always have a global vision of all variables and constraints involved in the process, therefore, the techniques and tools used to implement the S&OP process do not provide a holistic view of the activities and variables involved. Hence, this paper proposes a System Dynamics Model simulation that provides a holistic vision for the S&OP process, allowing the integration of finance processes and the use of probabilistic variables. The evaluation of the simulations results performed with the model, supported by a design of experiments (DoE), shows that the generated plans are compatible if compared to business procedure, with the advantage of dealing simultaneously with economic and financial analysis and still allows the generation of numerous scenarios of S&OP plans.

This paper provides an investigation of Advanced Planning Systems in a complex manufacturing environment. A usability framework based on human-computer collaboration is proposed to examine the robustness of planning systems. Applying a case research methodology with both qualitative and quantitative evidence, it is found that the Advanced Planning Systems do not perform better than the manual method where the humans make planning decisions with computer support.

Based on linear and linear integer programming techniques, Advanced Planning Systems (APS) enable the rescheduling of a tactical plan each time an event makes it necessary. This raises the problem that planning has certainly become more reactive but also instable, and hence might lead to a loss of robustness when taking decisions. This article presents a specific approach to tactical planning using APS systems. The main aims here are the robustness of the tactical plan and the stability of the decision parameters. The original feature in this article is the use of a reference plan. The difference between the plan calculated in period n and the reference plan is analysed, and if the deviation is not significant, the plan calculated in previous period is maintained.

Literature on supply chain management (SCM) covers several disciplines and is growing rapidly. This paper firstly aims at extracting the essence of SCM and advanced planning in the form of two conceptual frameworks: The house of SCM and the supply chain planning matrix. As an illustration, contributions to this feature issue will then be assigned to the building blocks of the house of SCM or to the modules covering the supply chain planning matrix. Secondly, focusing on software for advanced planning, we outline its main shortcomings and present latest research results for their resolution.

Correct standard times are needed for logistic operating curves, manufacturing planning and control systems and Advanced Planning Systems (APS) for scheduling, lot-sizing and sequencing. This paper presents a model for calculation of standard times based on the knowledge of the total busy time of a work center and the produced number of items in a fixed time period. The developed method requires little effort in comparison to other methods such as Work-Factor or time observation. It can regularly determine standard times using current confirmation data.

Production planners in food processing industries must continuously balance efficient production with flexible performance. On the basis of case studies, we state that flexibility is not only restrained by hard-wired production process characteristics, but also by organizational procedures in the planning process. Planning practice in food processing industries is often not able to make the most of the available flexibility in the production processes, and our analysis shows that existing production planning approaches, ERP systems, and advanced planning systems can only partly resolve this. We propose a planning framework that can help to analyze the flexibility of the planning. The planning framework relates planning events to the way in which planning decisions are structured in the planning organization. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Günümüzde rekabet sadece şirketler arasında değil, aynı zamanda arz zincirleri arasında yaşanmaktadır. Kurum içi aktivitelerin verimlilik ve etkinliklerini arttırmak, günümüz dünyasında rekabet avantajı sağlamak için yeterli değildir. Bu nedenle, arz zinciri yönetimi, arz zincirinin bütününde, envanterde oluşan maliyetleri düşürmeye, ürünlerin teslim sürelerini kısaltmaya ve talep tahminlerinin doğruluğunu ve şeffaflığını arttırmaya odaklanmalıdır. Bu hedefler, arz zincirlerine, aynı anda hem müşteri memnuniyetinin arttırılması, hem de maliyetlerin düşürülmesinde rehberlik edebilir. Tez çalışmasında, büyük hacimlerdeki üretim kapasitelerinin ve stokların etkin yönetilebilmesi amacı ile şirketler tarafından geliştirilen ve uygulanan Ürün Ağacı, Malzeme İhtiyaç Planlaması, Üretim Kaynakları Planlaması, Kurumsal Kaynak Planlaması ve İleri Planlama Programları, tarihsel gelişimi içerisinde ve işleyiş mekanizmaları ile ele alınmıştır. Globalleşen dünya ve internet, en temelde değişimin hızını arttırmıştır. Hayatın her alanında görüldüğü gibi, talepteki değişkenliğin hızı ve büyüklüğü de artmaktadır. Bu değişkenliğin endikasyonlarını en etkin şekilde yönetebilmek için gelişmiş araçlara ihtiyaç duyulmaktadır. Bu gelişmiş araçlar/programlar, arz zinciri boyunca hizalanmayı desteklemeli, farklı senaryoları simüle edebilmeli, bu senaryoların arz zinciri bütününe etkilerini gösterebilmeli ve bu değerlendirmeler ile alınacak kararların tedarik, üretim ve dağıtım programlarına anlık olarak aktarılmasını ve kullanılmasını sağlayabilmelidirler. Tezin son bölümünde, nihai tüketici talebinin, üretim kapasitelerinin, tedarik ve lojistik kaynakların hızlı değiştiği günümüz dünyasında, İleri Planlama Programlarının, arz zinciri esnekliğine ve çevikliğine katkıları değerlendirilmektedir., Nowadays, competition is not only lived among firms but also among supply chains. To increase effectiveness and efficiency in the firm, is not enough to gain competitive advantage in today's world. Therfore, supply chain management should focus on decreasing inventory costs, reducing lead times and increasing precision and transparency of demand forecasting, throughout supply chain. These targets, can lead supply chains to increase customer satisfaction and to decrease costs at the same time. In the thesis, Bill of Material, MRP, MRP II, ERP and APS programs, that are first developed and used in industries for effective management of huge production capacities and inventory, are analyzed through their development history and mechanisms of their processes. Globalizing world and internet, fundamentally, increased speed of change. As seen in every aspect of life, speed and magnitude of demand variability is increasing. Advanced instruments/programs are needed for effective management of the indications of high variability in demand. These instruments/programs should support alignment throughout supply chain, simulate different scenarios and show effects of these scenarios throughout supply chain and when a scenario is selected, it should deploy the scenario online to procurement, production and distribution programs. In the second part of thesis, effects of APS programs on supply chain flexibility and agility is analyzed in today's world where end consumer demand, production capacities, procurement and logistic sources are changing very fast.

Despite long-standing and ongoing research efforts, integration of planning and scheduling across the supply chain continues to be a major challenge. Limitations of the existing advanced planning systems in this regard have been widely cited in literature. This paper presents the results of the simulation-based validation of an alternative framework that addresses these limitations. The proposed framework, which is based on the ‘unitary structuring technique’ was shown to have the functionalities required to deal with simultaneous planning of materials and resources, dynamic forward planning of activities and finite capacity loading of resources. However, to demonstrate the robustness of this framework, future research should focus on developing and testing a wider range of scenarios and incorporating more complex supply chain applications.

Brachytherapy has come a long way from its beginnings nearly a century ago. In recent years, brachytherapy has become ever more sophisticated thanks to a multitude of technological developments, including high-dose rate afterloading machines, image-guidance, and advanced planning systems. One of the advantages of brachytherapy, apart from the well-known capability of delivering highly conformal doses directly to the target, is that it is highly adaptable and can be used as a primary, adjunct, or salvage treatment. However, despite the existence of international treatment guidelines, the clinical practice of brachytherapy varies greatly by region, country, and even institution. In the present article, we provide an overview of recent findings from the Patterns of Care for Brachytherapy in Europe (PCBE) Study and we discuss new technologies used in brachytherapy and the emerging concept of "new biology" that supports the use of high-dose brachytherapy. Compared to the 1990s, the use of brachytherapy has increased substantially and it is expected to continue growing in the future as it becomes ever more precise and efficient.

In this paper, we discuss the development of decision support systems for hierarchically structured planning approaches, such as commercially available advanced planning systems. We develop a framework to show how such a decision support system can be designed with the existing organization in mind, and how a decision process and corresponding software can be developed from this basis. Building on well-known hierarchical planning concepts, we include the typical anticipation mechanisms used in such systems to be able to decompose planning problems, both from the perspective of the planning problem and from the perspective of the organizational aspects involved. To exemplify and develop our framework, we use a case study of crude oil procurement planning in the refining industry. The results of the case study indicate an improved organizational embedding of the DSS, leading to significant savings in terms of planning efforts and procurement costs. In general, our framework aims to support the continuous improvement of advanced planning systems, increasing planning quality in complex supply chain settings. DSS development in the context of hierarchical planning systemsInclusion of organizational considerations in DSS developmentEmbedding of hierarchical planning aspects in problem decompositionDSS development consists equally of organization, process, and software design.Case study of crude oil procurement planning for refining industries

The beer supply chain is comprised by barley producers, maltsters and brewers is positioned internationally in the seventh place in the manufacture of beer. Moreover, nationwide, the state of Hidalgo ranks second in the production of barley. Also, in Mexico, the food chain of the barley is integrated as a "Product-System" and this in turn is regulated by a Master Plan which entails strategies that guide and give direction to this chain. In this paper, we propose the use of advanced planning systems through the supply chain planning matrix to support the development of strategies for the operation of the supply chain of the Barley Product-System of the state of Hidalgo, so that they are aligned with the plans of the same and in turn, to the plans of the partners. Through this matrix there were identified the various tasks performed in the processes along the supply chain, in each of the planning horizon, and in the implementation stage. This may contribute to compliance and monitoring strategic plans, tactical and operational supply chain of the Barley Product-System of the state of Hidalgo.

This paper presents Colibri, an advanced planning system that is adaptive according to the user's role, highlights the underlying process of the planning task, and supports real collaboration.

In the context of supply chains operations planning, mathematical programming models have been mainly used for centralised decision-making. However, the supply chain (SC) members not always agree on the alignment of individual decisions to SC-wide objectives and are usually reluctant to share all the required SC-wide information. For these reasons, SC decentralised decision making, in which different decisional units have to be coordinated to achieve a certain level of SC performance, is the most usual situation. In this collaborative planning (CP) context, spatial and temporal integration among the different SC decisional parts has to be considered. This paper aims to develop an application which supports the integrated modelling and execution of the CP decision-making process in SCs made up of several decisional centres (DCs) which make decisions based on mathematical programming models (as in Advanced Planning Systems) under temporal and spatial integration. The described application has been used to assist the CP of a real ceramic SC. The results are also reported.

This paper discusses the current trends and defies associated with productionscheduling, both from an industrial and academic perspective. First, the new challengesthat appear in the context of globalized and competitive economies are addressed. Theystem from the need of considering scheduling as a building block of the AdvancedPlanning Systems (APSs) that nowadays participate in Supply Chain Management(SCM) functions. They are primarily associated with business process coordination andinformation integration requirements. Then, main features, strengths and limitations ofcurrent academic proposals are briefly addressed. Finally, some of the reasons for theslow acceptance and modest penetration of these research results are highlighted. Thus,challenges and opportunities to be faced in order to alleviate the miscommunication ofthe academic and industrial worlds are pointed out. Fil: Henning, Gabriela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico Para la Industria Química. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Instituto de Desarrollo Tecnológico Para la Industria Química; Argentina

This paper discusses the current trends and defies associated with production scheduling, both from an industrial and academic perspective. First, the new challenges that appear in the context of globalized and competitive economies are addressed. They stem from the need of considering scheduling as a building block of the Advanced Planning Systems (APSs) that nowadays participate in Supply Chain Management (SCM) functions. They are primarily associated with business process coordination and information integration requirements. Then, main features, strengths and limitations of current academic proposals are briefly addressed. Finally, some of the reasons for the slow acceptance and modest penetration of these research results are highlighted. Thus, challenges and opportunities to be faced in order to alleviate the miscommunication of the academic and industrial worlds are pointed out.

This paper reviews the body of work on the operational planning and optimization of the supply chain in the pulp and paper industry, with an emphasis on integrated production planning and scheduling. The supply chain issues confronting the industry are discussed along with the apparent unexplored areas of its operational planning. It also suggests future directions of research. Moreover, it gives a synopsis of the heritage of operational planning tools available and tracks the evolution of the pioneering methods in to advanced planning systems of modern day.

SCM is concerned with the coordination of material, information and financial flows within and across legally separated organizational units. Software vendors have developed so called Advanced Planning Systems (APS) to provide decision support at different hierarchical planning levels of an intra-organizational supply chain. However, since APS are based on principles of hierarchical planning further ideas and concepts are required to coordinate activities and flows between adjacent planning levels of each partner.

Due to new economical challenges and recent trends regarding international trade and globalization, many companies from the Canadian forest products industry are now facing the need to reengineer their organizational processes and business practices with their partners. This paper proposes on architecture which aims to enable the development of advanced planning systems for the forest products industry. This architecture combines agent technology with operational research, in order to take advantage of the ability of agent-based technology to integrate distributed decision problems, and the ability of operation research to solve complex decision problems This paper describes how this architecture has been configured into an advanced planning and scheduling tool for the lumber industry, and how it is being validated

International audience; Based on linear and linear integer programming techniques, Advanced Planning Systems (APS) enable a tactical plan to be established each time the plan deviates from reality. Thus, planning is more reactive but may lead to a loss of robustness when making a decision. This article presents a specific approach to increase robustness and stability for tactical plans. Several methods have already been discussed to achieve this robustness target. This proposed new policy is called the "reference plan".