When your company formally decides to implement the system with Asprova, purchase the licenses for the required modules. You may refer to the “Modules and options” about the details for the modules. See table below.
Make sure that a project team has been formed for Asprova implementation. The team should consist of one person, responsible for the whole project, and 2 or more responsible for the implementation.
For the people in charge of the actual implementation, please assign one or more people from your manufacturing site as they know well about the scheduling requirement and one or more people from your information systems department as they are well-experienced in system requirements.
To ensure a smooth and successful implementation, it is very important to share the professional backgrounds and knowledge between the team members.
Estimated timeline of a project is usually 3-6 months – from kick off to project implementation.
It is an example of the required work during the implementation of a scheduling system for specific production.
The very first step of implementing a project is to define the requirements together with the system coverage they provide. Please refine the requirements definition and make a “Fit&Gap analysis” for the scheduling requirements for each operation.
The purpose is to sort out the priorities and corresponding actions. To be able to visualize your expectations with respect to the scheduling requirements, it is recommended to make a graphical representation for the assignment results. See sample below.
The next step is the Data Preparation. This step makes up most of the implementation, in most cases. Delays may occur as it takes a lot of time for preparing, if the accuracy of parameters measuring is low, for example, for the production capacities. In such cases, it is recommend to ensure the accuracy of your data and improve it further during implementation. In addition, when constructing the “Scheduling parameters” and implementing the scheduling logic, it is recommend that you start with a small amount of data.
If you start it with all the data at the very beginning, it will take a lot of time not only for preparing all the data, but also for identifying the bottle necks. Please start with the data from the prototype first, and add to the amount gradually by 30%, 70%, and 100% of the total.
Next, let’s consider the manufacturing and operation processes together with the study of related documentation, such as the various technology-related instructions.
It is necessary to cooperate with external program systems with regards to data communications. To proceed with development of such new software, please specify the interfaces with them.
Summarize the manufacturing methods in an operation manual.
Check each table to confirm whether we can smoothly input/output the data during testing.
Then prepare the test samples for the system test and test the parallel operation.
Besides the testing of the implementation of defined requirements, please test your specific scenarios, such as sudden changes of orders, etc.
In particular, in most cases re-scheduling will be performed on daily basis, so to simulate this, let’s not forget to perform the transaction tests for the whole system. Make sure that problems do not occur in such cases as irregular changes of orders and master data, and also consider an execution time of scheduling.
You also have to provide training for your staff, based on a study of the operation manuals. Check the operation manuals and update as necessary. Upon completion of the tests, stop the old system and officially launch the new system, based on the “Asprova” scheduler. After official launch, maintenance of the system is necessary in order to add or change the production items, manufacturing equipment, etc. Because of this, conclude a maintenance contract with the “Asprova” company in order to use Asprova for a long period time.
There are many specifics in every project implemented with Asprova, therefore only the common procedures are explained. The scheduler is just a tool and its essential task is to make a schedule fast. The effect will be different depending on the manner of implementation.
To succeed in implementation, make sure that you have the correct definition of the requirements, the relevant prototype and the proper test procedures.
To learn more about Asprova specific to this sample demonstration, you may visit Asprova’s online help and its e-Learning videos at http://lib.asprova.com/ (see 26.How to plan and conduct the introduction project.).