During the project, the GoodsForecast.Supply Planning integrated planning platform's production planning and optimization (S&OP) component was tested as a potential replacement for the current SAP APO SNP solution at one of the largest industrial holdings in the iron and steel industry.
The project customer is one of the TOP-3 metallurgical holdings in Russia. Staying with a Western solution without support and updates was risky for the further development of the holding. It was necessary to maintain the relationship between production plans and financial goals and indicators. It was decided to consider the possibility of replacing the previously implemented Western planning system with a domestic analogue that is not inferior in quality, functionality and performance.
The GoodsForecast team was invited to create a prototype based on a completely domestic solution, since it could offer all the necessary functionality, established itself as a developer of effective and high-performance mathematical algorithms, and is the only supplier of integrated planning solutions in Russia that has its own solver (optimizer).
To create the prototype, the current SAP APO SNP planning model running at that time in the enterprise was used with a full volume of data, including more than 3,000 specifications of materials produced on 79 lines/units. After porting to the GoodsForecast platform, the calculation time for the full model, even on a regular personal computer, was only 15-16 seconds. Such high performance allows you to comfortably perform multiple recalculations of the plan and conduct scenario analysis, taking into account changes in demand forecasts, repair schedules, various options for the supply of raw materials, as well as many other parameters, and ultimately select the most suitable option.
In addition to mid-term or tactical planning processes with a horizon of 12-24 months, including demand planning, S&OP and supply network planning/optimization, the GoodsForecast integrated planning platform also allows you to meet the need of enterprises in the process or heavy industries for operational scheduling of production and supply network, in drawing up optimal production schedules, optimization and inventory management and solving other management problems.