Take Your Scheduling To The Next Level With ECI APS
ECI APS (Advanced Planning and Scheduling) offers a powerful visual planning board, online production plans, drag-and-drop job management, custom constraints, and what-if scenario analysis so you can optimize production.
Maximize output. Minimize downtime.
Don't let planning and scheduling challenges drive up your operating costs and delay deliveries. With ECI APS’s advanced, finite capacity-based planning and scheduling, manufacturers are empowered to create precise schedules that minimize downtime and inefficiencies. This enables them to operate more efficiently and respond faster to changing demands.
Optimize long-term and short-term machine scheduling
Plan weeks ahead by scheduling tasks for groups of machines, then effortlessly allocate specific tasks to individual machines as deadlines approach, ensuring precision and adaptability as production schedules firm up.
Gain full visibility into operational impact
Access a holistic view of how each operation connects across the entire business, allowing you to instantly understand the ripple effects of changes and make data-driven decisions that reduce risk and enhance efficiency. This visibility will also help you identify production slowdowns with intuitive visual indicators and quickly reschedule tasks to keep operations running smoothly and minimize downtime.
Centralize scheduling for all resources
Streamline resource coordination by scheduling all resources from a single platform, ensuring that all essential resources are aligned for smooth and efficient operations. You can also simplify day-to-day management by easily adjusting employee schedules in real-time, helping managers respond swiftly to staffing changes or constraints without disrupting overall workflow.
Adapt quickly to resource availability in real time
Easily modify machine or department hours for any given day or range of dates, enabling swift responses to unexpected changes in capacity without disrupting the broader schedule.
APS (Advanced Planning and Scheduling) FAQs
Below you’ll find answers about our APS system—how it enhances planning, optimizes scheduling, and improves delivery performance. It’s a great place to start if you're aiming to streamline production and boost efficiency.
What is the difference between MES and APS?
APS (Advanced Production Scheduling) focuses on planning and optimizing the schedule, especially in complex, multi-constraint environments. MES (Manufacturing Execution System) adds an additional layer for executing and monitoring the schedule in real-time. This includes machine integration, operator interaction, and shop floor data collection.
How does APS integrate with my existing ERP?
APS acts as the engine that drives the scheduling process. Your ERP provides foundational data such as orders, jobs, routing steps, times, and due dates, and sends it to APS via API. APS then uses this data to generate and manage the actual schedule. Any changes to the schedule, such as updated start and end dates, are communicated back to the ERP.
Do I need to disable the scheduling functionality within my ERP if I implement APS?
No. The existing scheduling feature in your ERP does not need to be disabled. APS will effectively override and manage the scheduling process.
Can APS account for multiple jobs running on the same machine in the same day?
Depending on how the resources are configured within APS, it can account for multiple jobs running on the same machine within a single day. Unlike ERP systems, APS allows for more detailed information about machine capabilities, enabling it to recognize and schedule for scenarios where multiple jobs can run concurrently on a single resource.
How can my team access APS?
Since APS is supplementary to the ERP, user access is managed separately and controlled by the system administrator, who will typically restrict access to specific roles, such as schedulers and planners. Once access has been granted, users can access APS through a desktop application.
How customizable is APS?
APS is highly customizable at the company level, allowing you to personalize various aspects of the interface, such as the information displayed on Gantt chart bars. For example, you can choose to show remaining hours, operation descriptions, part numbers, or other relevant data directly within the bars. These customizations can be easily performed by your users, without assistance from ECI.
Request a demo of the ECI APS solution today!
Take your scheduling to the next level with optimized production. We'll show you how.