Professional tools for the dispatcher

Dispatchers face constantly growing challenges in their daily work. The increasing fragmentation of the markets, the growing diversity of variants and the high flexibility requirements of customers are leading to increasingly hybrid and thus also fluctuating demand. At the same time, customers demand constantly short delivery times at the most favorable conditions. However, a shipment from the Far East cannot be shipped to Europe in two or three days. Local logistics are not trivial either. On the one hand, dispatchers have to utilize the entire capacity of containers and trucks and comply with minimum order quantities. On the other hand, they have to keep the procurement quantity low and the material inventory as small as possible, thereby reducing the tied-up capital.

Disposition is a complex matter

The complexity of scheduling can be seen in the number of master data required alone: Depending on the article, up to 130 logistical parameters have to be taken into account.

Sustainable Optimization

take care of. If you imagine this as a mathematical equation, it is easy to understand that you cannot calculate it in your head. Big mistakes are made, however, when individual parameters are combined for the sake of simplicity. For example, safety stocks for fluctuating demand, safety stocks for fluctuating production times and safety stocks for fluctuating delivery times of upstream suppliers are represented in a common safety value. Cumulatively, this can only lead to more inventory. Strongly oscillating graphs with many different peaks turn into curves until you finally arrive at a "smooth" forecast, which, however, only covers up the problems and costs a lot of money in the end. An optimal disposition therefore also needs correspondingly differentiating tools.

ERP alone is not enough

In most companies, a suitable software tool already exists for scheduling purposes: the existing ERP system or corresponding extensions. However, ERP systems originally have other tasks, so that the options for demand forecasting and scheduling are usually very limited and these functionalities are not sufficiently differentiated. For example, automatisms for the continuous optimization of MRP parameters are practically non-existent. In addition, virtually all known ERP systems work exclusively with statistical procedures that assume a so-called "normally distributed" demand, such as averaging procedures or exponential smoothing. In practice, however, normally distributed demand is practically never encountered. Rather, demand is subject to

"normally distributed" demand?

demand is subject to constant seasonal, cyclical or other fluctuations. As a result, calculations based on the assumption of normally distributed demand lead to systematically incorrect demand forecasts and inventory errors of up to 40 percent.

Precise special tool

It remains to be said that forecasting and scheduling tasks can be performed with an ERP system. However, the result is usually far from optimal. To achieve this, schedulers need advanced planning and scheduling software, or APS software for short. Such precision tools for specialists are usually much more precisely tailored to the scheduling tasks than generalist ERP systems and offer, for example, much finer, range-oriented forecasting functionalities for improved planning and can thus predict the actual demand much more accurately. For the "generalists " - i.e. the ERP providers - this special market is hardly interesting, as very deep and specific expertise is required here. Nevertheless, there is a high need for action, since companies with a variant-rich portfolio can regularly save hundreds of thousands of euros in stored material and thus dead capital.

Know-how cast in software

One provider of such potential is SCT GmbH from Herzogenrath near Aachen, which specialises in supply chain optimisation. The young start-up company, a spin-off of the supply chain specialist Abels & Kemmner GmbH, which consists of a competent team of computer scientists, engineers and business people with extensive software and consulting experience, offers such Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software with the software tool DISKOVER SCO. The range of functions includes, for example, powerful forecasting methods even beyond the normal distribution. In addition, there are functions for portfolio analysis, for the integration of sales forecasts or for warehouse capacity planning. The material flow through production and the entire supply chain can also be displayed and optimised with DISKOVER SCO. Material and capacity analyses as well as special functions for order planning and capacity scheduling help the schedulers to ensure a material supply that flows as evenly as possible despite fluctuations in demand. All this is always planned under the premise of achieving a high degree of delivery readiness with minimum stocks.

Accelerates the workflows

The professional tool is characterized by the fact that it is easy to handle despite the complex tasks in daily operation. For example, users are actively alerted to the current need for action and benefit, among other things, from the consistent graphical visualization of demand forecasts and the corresponding scheduling proposals. The effects of

Transparency about the supply chain

Process or master data changes can be simulated interactively and intuitively and displayed graphically, which supports decision-making particularly efficiently.

However, DISKOVER not only helps to optimise scheduling when the user works directly with the system. Through far-reaching simulations running automatically in the background, the scheduling recommendations are optimised on the basis of the constantly updating planning parameters. This can then lead to a recommendation to change the previously selected forecasting procedure. Through such automatisms, even users less experienced in scheduling can achieve a high degree of forecasting accuracy and thus an overall improvement in scheduling.

Rental license model reduces costs

However, a user-friendly overall package includes not only the convenient operation of the software, but also integration and maintenance - an aspect that many companies often overlook when making their IT investments. For software providers, it is particularly lucrative to sell customers runtime licenses for individual software versions. This is because high purchase prices are incurred for these, usually for each new version. The much more attractive option from the user's point of view is a rental license model, as offered by SCT for DISKOVER SCO, which works in a similar way to models sold by SaaS. This saves companies massive initial investments for runtime licenses and they only have to pay a monthly amount as long as they use the APS software.

Continuous Delivery relieves IT department

The rental license model offers advantages: Thanks to Continuous Delivery, DISKOVER users receive all new developments automatically and in the shortest possible time. This means that the system is always up to date without the need to purchase a new program version. In addition to update management, the SCT service centre also takes care of maintenance work. This includes, for example, the live monitoring of the sys

Forecasts with range

The IT department of the user company does not have to provide technical support for the system or its users. This means that the IT department of the user company does not have to provide any technical support for the system or its users.