In 2016, America Tampas had its first experience with an APS solution for automating production sequencing, achieving significant gains in visibility and speed in production scheduling compared to the use of Excel spreadsheets.

However, the APS software in question presented some critical issues that directly impacted its performance and the routine of the PPCP team. Issues such as system instability, the frequent need to fix problems in the solution, and slowness in integrating data with the ERP led America Tampas to rethink its current situation and seek other solutions on the market that would meet its new ambitions.

Due to its experience in the plastic injection segment and because it represents a globally established APS software, NEO Engenharia de Produção was the consultancy chosen by America Tampas to begin a new partnership and thus continue the company's evolution on its digitalization journey.

Thus, the project to implement the OPCENTER APS software at America Tampas by NEO began in February 2021, with a total duration of 3 months, a record implementation time.

The speed and accuracy in implementing Opcenter APS at America Tampas were made possible by the maturity and knowledge acquired by the PPCP team from their previous experience, as well as the readiness and quality of the data needed to develop the project.

Considering the main needs and difficulties presented by America Tampas, the solution was developed focusing mainly on two processes: fine production sequencing in the short and medium term, in addition to the development of aggregate planning, the master production schedule, for a long-term horizon.

For fine production scheduling, the solution enables the generation of production orders from sales orders, the sequencing of orders aiming to optimize setups, the dynamic allocation of alternative molds across different machines, and greater visibility into the need for inputs and other materials in a manner synchronized with production, all integrated with the ERP and MES system used by the company.

On the other hand, aggregate production planning enables the generation of the master schedule, the MPS, considering the plant's finite capacity. Thus, by allocating the demand forecast to the available resources and molds, America Tampas is able to visualize the volume of SKUs to be produced monthly over a period of 12 or more months, identifying possible bottlenecks and idle resources, in addition to the early projection of raw material consumption, thereby avoiding a future shortage of inputs.

With the implementation of the OPCENTER APS software, America Tampas was able to resolve the difficulties arising from the APS solution previously used, not to mention significant gains such as the reduction of data processing time during the integration between the ERP and OPCENTER APS. In addition, there was a reduction in the total time to generate production sequencing for both plants from 5 hours to 2 hours, the minimization of total setup times, and the automation of returning order fulfillment dates to the Sales team, improving the relationship and synergy between the areas.

Another differentiator was access to reports with detailed views to support and speed up decision-making, in addition to the low rate of need for corrections to the solution.

"With the use of Opcenter APS, we were able to achieve greater agility and efficiency in production planning, being able to generate multiple scenarios according to our daily needs and challenges."— Munique Franco, PPCP Analyst at America Tampas

She also emphasized that Opcenter APS, combined with the quick response and technical expertise of the NEO team, has been a significant differentiator in the daily routine of the team and the company, enabling the continuous development of new solutions.

And America Tampas does not want to stop there. Aware of the endless possibilities to be achieved in this partnership with NEO, the company has several improvement projects for its APS solution on its roadmap. Among them, we can highlight the project to automatically create purchase requisitions in the ERP, based on the scheduling dates of sales orders and the demand forecast in OPCENTER APS, as well as improvements in generating the master production schedule with rules more specific to the company's scenario.

"Sequencing production today, tomorrow, in the short, medium, and long term with ease, agility, speed, and accuracy are among the differentiators that Opcenter APS now provides us."— Anderson Petter, PPCP Coordinator