Prioritizing and sequencing. Not two of the most exciting words in the English language. Regardless, it appears that through a clever use of RSS technology, these two words are about to taking on a brand new meaning.

Consolidation in the manufacturing applications market continues with MES vendor Visiprise acquiring RSS Solutions, a Canadian advanced planning and scheduling vendor with a footprint in discrete, make-to-order-centric manufacturing scenarios for production and final assembly of complex and customized products.

What this means for Visiprise
With RSS Solutions, Visiprise acquires a Java-based product, NaView, which is built to model work centers based on capacity availability, order priorities, and due dates. The product has the capability to model the entire shop floor and multitier manufacturing problems of vertically integrated work centers. It improves flexibility through scenario planning and quick scheduling models to accommodate unplanned events like asset failures, manufacturing nonconformance runs, engineering change orders, and rush jobs.

What this means for the market: scheduling matters in demand-driven manufacturing
Using MRP II to generate a list of orders and their due dates for manufacturing to prioritize and sequence manually may suffice when you’ve got lots of spare capacity, low product mix, long order lead times, and low inventory holding costs. In today’s demand-driven economy, however, manufacturers are expected to turn on a dime and also to squeeze more order throughput out of aging manufacturing assets. They are facing shorter order lead times and increasing product mix while, at the same time, expected to reduce raw material, work-in-process, and finished goods inventory and total manufacturing costs. And, by the way, targets for quality and regulatory compliance aren’t being relaxed…. Source: AMR Reasearch