3 ways to divide your company for better APS usage

When you start thinking about implementing an APS solution, one of the first questions that comes up is: “Should we split the company into different models? And how do we do that?”Well, first let's discuss what we mean by a model. We call a model an independent unit within the APS system. Just like in math problems where we model a real-world problem and turn it into a theoretical one, but instead of writing a mathematical expression we do it using the APS system.So, in complex production chains within the same company, splitting the APS models can directly influence the quality and adherence of the solution. Therefore, it's always important to discuss the positive and negative impacts of each architecture we'll adopt. The big trade-off at this stage of the project is that the more you separate models, the more the holistic view of the factory is hurt; the more you group models together, the more complex the solution becomes.To illustrate, we separated 3 types of model splits:1 - Physical SplitThis is perhaps the most natural of all and often happens without much discussion. Imagine a company headquartered in Porto Alegre and São Paulo. Originally, each of these sites will probably have its own scheduler, with its own scheduling rules, specific parameters and other basic differences. To give proper independence to the two plants, it may be interesting to design an independent model for each.2 - Split by Parallel ProcessNow imagine that the same company produces two types of products (pens and pencils). It may be interesting to split each product type into its own model, even when produced at the same site. But be very careful with this step: we must satisfy a basic sequencing premise — the same resource can only be sequenced by one model. That is, the machines that produce the pen components will not produce the pencil components, ensuring that the flow of each product type doesn't mix with the other.3 - Split by Sequential ProcessAnother example that is quite common is to have one model per production stage. For example, if our pen factory were separated into the Assembly and Packaging sectors. This division can make a lot of sense to give independence to the processes, but it also requires that there already be a process-level separation between these two sectors — for example, an inventory of assembled pens for the packaging sector. In these cases, it can be a great gain to group these sectors to get a view of the production order flow and the impact a scheduling change has on the next process.So, as we can see, the solution can be designed in several different ways for an APS implementation project, showing how flexible and adaptable this solution is to the various production chains combined with market experience. Now tell us, what would be the best architecture for yours?[noptin-form id=2822]