Making value with order management agent based systems
Systematic methods and tools for managing the complexity
Tools Integration - CAPE Methods & Tools (T4-10P)
Keywords: Order management, agent based system, supply chain planning, budgeting, liquidity control
The objective of this work is the creation of competitive procedures able to track and satisfy on time the customers’ orders in chemical processing industry. Our order management agent-based system under development is focused on the integration of finances and production operations including the remaining impact of supply chain functions. This approach lets the overall control of liquidity, besides the dynamic creation of prices. If the proper solution is proposed, the shop floor can meet the delivery commitments with competitive lead times and responding without sacrificing efficiency when a customer needs new products, change items, quantities or dates. Improving customer service creates stress to do whatever it takes to satisfy the customer. However, cost consciousness is basic. Concentrating on efficiency or over commit on orders can be problematical. The importance of scheduling becomes obvious given that links of the suppliers of the supplier and the customers of the customer make an impact in the responsiveness that could propagate to the whole chain.
The APS systems could guarantee a suite of scheduling solutions depending on the needs. When an order arrives its feasibility is validated using the APS with the proper method. Probably mathematical models cannot be used due to its slow responding speed. Heuristics that produce an acceptable approximation can be used when, for example, 65000 different articles need to be scheduled.
We propose a case study where is created a bi-criteria for scheduling orders: instead of timing using time, it is proposed a time-value timing. We use the minimization of not overlapping times, knowing its value a priori for all binary schedules (data). For each binary schedule considered is calculated the profit density of the time-value aggregate, calculating the “density” of profit per hour of completion time, which obviously is schedule dependent. This density PRii’ can be easily calculated as the profit contribution of the batches considered, divided by its real processing time (e.g., considering ovelaps).
In a complete case study will be shown the possibilities the agent based system, working with time-value criteria when scheduling with financial and operative integration.
Presented Thursday 20, 13:30 to 14:40, in session Tools Integration - CAPE Methods & Tools (T4-10P).
