Content area
Full Text
Introduction
Supply chain management (SCM) crystallizes concepts about integrated business planning. Today, integrated planning is finally possible due to advances in information technology (IT) ([19] Shapiro, 2001). Usually, SCM requires an advanced planning and scheduling (APS) system, which is defined in APICS Dictionary as:
... any computer program that uses advanced mathematical algorithms or logic to perform optimization or simulation on finite capacity scheduling ... These techniques simultaneously consider a range of constraints and business rules to provide real-time planning and scheduling, decision support, available-to-promise, and capable-to-promise capabilities ([3] Cox and Blackstone, 2002).
For decades, the academic field has treated the production planning and scheduling problems as deterministic and static, and formulated various mathematical models to solve them. Despite the vast volume of theories in the academic field, some authors have cautioned the insufficiency of planning and scheduling theories and noted that their application in the industry was rare ([8] Graves, 1981; [14] McKay and Wiers, 1999; [16] Portougal and Robb, 2000; [9] He and Sheu, 2006). However, consultancy firms and APS software providers continued to tout breakthrough in IT and the APS software for industrial implementation. Amidst such technology and theory-dominated environments, few studies have been made on whether the APS-dominant approach really solves the real-world planning and scheduling problems. This lack of documentation on the gaps between APS theory and practice does not mean the successful application of the theory in the industrial settings. To assess the effectiveness of APS in the real world, this paper presents a field study on the planning practices and the outcome of an APS implementation at a leading semiconductor manufacturing company in Taiwan. Major findings of this study include the identification of pitfalls in APS implementation, practical insights, and an effective approach to APS implementation.
This paper is structured as follows. First, an introduction is presented. The second section presents a perspective on planning and scheduling. The third section presents a case overview and research methodology. The fourth section presents the results of the case study. The fifth section discusses on the research findings and presents an effective approach to APS implementation. Finally, a conclusion with future work is presented.
A perspective on planning and scheduling
Planning and scheduling problems have been the research topic in a...