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APS planning and scheduling simulation

TraverseBoard Advanced Planning & Scheduling

Simulation-assisted planning & scheduling software

TraverseBoard Advanced Planning & Scheduling is a software tool to optimize tactical and operational decisions through the power of simulation.
Traverse Board’s calculation core consist of simulation models strengthened with optimization algorithms brought together by a customizable user-friendly interface. The tool is typically used in high risk and high investment businesses.

Integrating optimization techniques and simulation

TraverseBoard can be used to create optimized day-to-day schedules and plans but is also able to analyze investment scenarios. By combining the unique strengths of both simulation and optimization, fast, reliable, robust and accurate results are created.

Traverse board is a comprehensive platform for creating optimized robust plans and schedules through multiple time horizons.

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Planning & Scheduling Solutions

If you want to have more information about how Talumis can help with setting up planning and scheduling solutions, please send a question to our planning & scheduling expert Dirk-Jan Moens.

Contact Dirk-Jan

Combining Simulation & Optimization techniques in a Planning & Scheduling environment

Planning & Scheduling Simulation

Simulation

The simulation engine of Traverse Board is used to test what-if scenario’s in order to evaluate various plans and schedules. Traverse Board can create various scenarios that can be compared on multiple key performance indicators. Typical questions that can be answered are: do we need extra operators, machines, handling equipment, etc..

Planning

On a tactical level it is possible to generate different plans via optimization or drag and drop activities in a Gantt Chart. Typical questions that can be answered is reducing total throughput time, impact of changes in plans, whether temporary recourses are needed, etc.

Various plans can be compared on Value at Risk and Timeliness of Orders. The simulation engine will provide detailed data that is uncertain and therefore Traverse Board is able to plan for real-life uncertainties, providing the most optimal and robust plans.

Scheduling

Traverseboard Advanced Planning & Scheduling can be linked to other (on-line) systems, enabling to automatically schedule day-to-day operations. Users are able to change the schedule and test possible alternatives using the scenario management capabilities of TraverseBoard. This also allow users to test various schedule options when faced with unforeseen events. Simulation will provide comparisons between schedules to see the impact of changes on the short term and quantify the risks on the long run.

Advantages of simulation

One of the main advantages of simulation is handling uncertainties. Traverse Board can simulate plans multiple times, using statistics to mimic real-life uncertainties. In this way it is possible to find out how robust a plan/schedule is and what the risks are. It is possible to compare plans for instance on its Value at Risk, the Timeliness of a Plan and Resource Utilization.

Optimize schedules

This will allow to optimize for the current schedule, taking into account future plans and uncertainties. Schedulers are able to evaluate the impact of different schedules/plans, either generated by the optimization engine or by manually altered plans. traverseboard Advanced Planning & Scheduling will quantify the risk a plan is exposed to, for the short, mid and long term.

planning and scheduling simulation

Advanced Planning and Scheduling

Create, evaluate and publish plans

Interactive Gantt Charts are used to display plans and activate or deactivate recourses. Planned arrivals and stock profiles can be compared to actual data.

Mimic future data

Traverse Board is able to schedule with ‘known’ short term uncertainties and combine it with longer term uncertainties. For instance a breakdown or bad weather can be known when creating a schedule for the next day. For the mid and long term actual data might not be known. Here the simulation engine will provide an order generator to mimic this unknown future data.

Compare different plans using real life uncertainty

Different plans are evaluated through simulation experiments, enabling a planner to create the optimal solution.

Simulation results will quantify Value at Risk and Timeliness

Value at Risk and Timeliness are two important features for determining the best plans. For supply chain solutions SCOR card reporting can be generated as well, including the robustness of these KPI’s.

planning and scheduling simulation
</p> <h6 style="margin-bottom: 5px;">Dirk-Jan Moens</h6> <p>

Dirk-Jan Moens

Optimization Consultant
Ask Dirk-Jan a question

Planning & Scheduling Solutions

If you want to have more information about how Talumis can help with setting up planning and scheduling solutions, please send a question to our planning & scheduling expert.

Contact Dirk-Jan

Simulation-assisted planning & scheduling projects by Talumis

Shell

For LNG (liquefied natural gas) supply chain planning and scheduling a solution has been developed that can create and optimize annual delivery plans. The optimization takes into account future uncertainties like weather events and unscheduled production outages. The resulting plan is both robust (can recover from unforeseen events) and optimal (uses the best delivery strategy based on revenue).

ESI-Eurosilo

Another example is the on-line monitoring and control of coal storage and burn plan in a power plant. The simulation model calculates, based on on-line (real-time) PLC information, where particular coal qualities are located in the storage facility. Then a simple algorithm is used to create the best short-term burning mix and plan. This plan can than also be simulated to validate the calculated plan.

SNS-Pool

For the planning of supply vessels Talumis also created a simulation support planning system. The problem of vessel supply can be characterized as a so called “multiple vehicle routing problem with time windows”. There are mathematical optimizers that can calculate the ‘optimal’ solution. The downside is that these optimizers are very calculation intensive, cannot cope with all constraints  and can only be used deterministic. Talumis created a combination of heuristics and optimization together with a very detailed simulation model. The simulation, together with the bespoke optimizer, is able to create detailed delivery plans that can be used both strategically (how many vessels do I need) as well as in operations (what is the plan for tomorrow).