Orchestrate scheduling software is the intelligent planning choice for City University

At the heart of any planning and scheduling challenge is the need to ensure the right products or people are at the right place at the right time and in the right order while making maximum use of all available resources. This is the same whether in a busy vehicle logistics office, a complex production environment or the intense and ever changing environment of educational placement. Planners have to be agile enough to react quickly to unforeseen events and then attempt to update the entire plan accordingly. The consequences of poor or inadequate planning can often be extremely costly which is why planning and scheduling systems such as Orchestrate scheduling software from UK specialist Production Modelling are increasingly relied upon. This is precisely why the prestigious City University, London, has just been added to Production Modelling’s long list of companies successfully using Orchestrate and they are already seeing the benefits.

The challenges

Oonagh Gormley, Head of Academic Planning and Performance in the School of Health Sciences, outlines the main planning challenges that the University faces. “Our primary requirement is to match students to placements according to a complex set of rules while working with a variety of constraints.” Even a brief consideration of the scale of planning that this requires demonstrates the potential benefits that City University stands to gain. The School of Health Sciences  has approximately 1500 students on Nursing and Midwifery programmes that have to fulfil between 50%-60% of their course time (depending on course) on active placement, which are offered by up to 200 placement providers of different types, sizes and distance from the university. Programmes can be of 2 or 3 years duration and each placement provider may offer varying numbers of placements for different elements of a programme at different times of year. Each placement is governed by strictly defined rules governing the nature and sequence of placements that each student has to adhere to.

Gormley illustrates the complex interdependency of these rules and why Orchestrate scheduling software has already proved to be so beneficial. “Some placements won’t take 1^st year students, while others will but only to a certain percentage. Students may be eligible for certain placements only if they have taken the necessary preceding placements.” She continues, “We also have to deal with the reality that placement providers have a fixed capacity of space at any given time and that students can start their courses at different times.” The University’s placement plan also needs continual updating to take into account unforeseeable changes such as students not attending placements due to illness or placement providers unable to offer spaces due to unexpected maintenance work. 

The limitations of spreadsheets

This is precisely the complex planning and scheduling scenario that Orchestrate was designed to help with. Unsurprisingly, the University had tried to address its challenges in the same way as many other institutions, i.e. by the use of complex and unwieldy spreadsheets. Unsurprisingly, these proved equally as incapable of adequately doing so. In City University’s case, they relied on a 9-10 page interlinked spreadsheet which when printed stretched the length of an entire wall. While not impossible to use to match students with placements, it was very time intensive and at best only provided a snapshot of which student was supposed to where and when. “The problem came,” explains Gormley, “when we had to update the plan to reflect any changes in either a student’s or a placement provider’s situation. This would all have to be done manually and could take hours whereas now with Orchestrate it’s a matter of pressing a button, Orchestrate has a quick think, and we have the right answer in minutes.”

The other area that the spreadsheet approach failed was its inability to provide students with a comprehensive placement history over their entire course, something they need for future employment or education possibilities. Orchestrate not only provides an up to date overview of a student’s entire placement history, past and projected, it also allows a user to drill down to each placement and see all the relevant information relating to this.

Why Orchestrate Scheduling Software

City University had already recognised the need to utilise a computerised scheduling solution and had even investigated a bespoke system developed by another University. This however was discounted on the grounds that it was not supported, would require considerable tweaking to fit their own requirements and would require skilled personnel to operate. What was required was a proven system that would be easy to configure to match their unique requirements and simple to use and maintain. A chance conversation between The School of Health Sciences’ Chief Operating Officer and a senior manager at Production Modelling led to the shared realisation that Orchestrate would meet all of these requirements. This was confirmed when Production Modelling demonstrated a working system modelled on City University’s workflow and a decision was made to invest in Orchestrate. As Gormley remarks, “It was clear that Orchestrate was the sort of solution we needed and so we made the pragmatic decision to try it.”

A culture of change

City University began using Orchestrate with live data at the start of the 2012 academic year with all and is retrospectively adding existing 2^nd and 3^rd year students so they too can benefit from the comprehensive placement history the system provides. According to Gormley, what unifies the many individual benefits that Orchestrate is already bringing is a positive change in culture at every level. 

The university benefits

At a university placement planning level, the most immediate benefit from Orchestrate has been saving the equivalent of at least 1 full time position spent administering and maintaining the planning spreadsheet. As Gormley comments, “this has freed existing resource from basic admin work which means these people are now able to do much more value-added work.” The university is now able to react much quicker to any changes in either placement or student availability and with increased confidence. At a wider university level, Orchestrate is also being used as a central data repository for all information relating to placements. This is invaluable when it comes to the university’s bi-annual placement auditing process as Gormley explains, “Every two years we have to audit each placement provider which previously involved using another complex spreadsheet with lots of hyperlinks to other documents. Many of these were broken which made finding them very time consuming. Now all the relevant documents are stored in Orchestrate and immediately accessible.” Orchestrate also acts a central data store for all placement provider contracts with the university able to see an overview of placement provider performance at the touch of a button.

The students benefit

At a student level, because Orchestrate scheduling software is able to push live placement data to external online resources, they can now log in and immediately have access to their entire placement plan. On-going development work with Production Modelling will allow additional complementary information such as maps, travel information etc. to be displayed which will empower students to take more responsibility for managing their own placements. Gormley adds, “Thanks to Orchestrate, students will also find they have a slicker, more user friendly experience – the sort of thing that people increasingly expect to have.”

 

The placement providers benefit

Work is currently on-going which will extend Orchestrate’s benefits to the placement providers depending on various decisions yet to be taken by the university. For example, it is possible for the system to allow each placement provider to directly access and manage their own placement timetable. This will allow providers and students to liaise directly with each other and take more responsibility re placements and will significantly reduce the amount of time placement providers were previously having to spend when going via the university.

Building for the future

Gormley and the team at City University are understandably pleased with the benefits achieved so far but they recognise there is more to come from Orchestrate. Their main priority is harnessing the data already in the system by developing the system’s reporting capabilities. The final word belongs to Gormley. “So far we have already reaped a number of benefits and can see more to come. We are very pleased with the system and the progress we have made.” 

Scheduling Software goes live in just six weeks!

Orchestrate Scheduling Software goes live in just six weeks – boosting planning performance at Vernagroup

Vernagroup is a remarkable Bolton-based company that has a mission to be global leaders in providing premier medical pulp products, macerators and complementary products and services to healthcare markets around the world. Their advanced manufacturing processes are key to delivering the most cost effective products to a demanding market sector in all five continents. Orchestrate has transformed the management and control of production - a painless implementation in record time.

There must be a better way of doing things!

“What used to take a whole day for a planner can now be accomplished in twenty minutes. That doesn’t just mean eliminating the hassle, it means we can afford to run alternative scenarios, knowing that built-in KPI alerts will keep us on track.”

Steve Brownlee, IT Director, Vernagroup

“Our production facilities are state-of-the-art for our industry, with patented innovative technology and robotics,” says Steve Brownlee, IT Director, Vernagroup. “Yet our planning systems were cumbersome and unwieldy, relying heavily on spreadsheets and burning a lot of midnight oil. There had to be a better way of doing things, so we decided to computerize the process. Our selection criteria were clear: a proven ‘out of the box’ system that is cost effective, easy to implement, easy to use, and not requiring lots of IT support.”

The project team looked at more than one solution and selected Production Modelling’s Orchestrate scheduling software. “We liked the fact that it was a modern system so, unlike its competitors, it is very intuitive in use,” Steve explains. “It’s also very ‘visual’, very well presented, which makes it so much easier to assess different planning scenarios.”

To reassure themselves, the team visited Steelite, another successful manufacturing company with similar production complexities. The management at Steelite were able to demonstrate that Orchestrate offered the benefits of a packaged solution that could quickly be customized – very cost effectively.

“One third the cost, implemented in six weeks and getting absolute benefits”

"It has been somewhat staggering,” Steve comments, “the capability of the software to deal with our complexity, and also how rapidly the team from Production Modelling could configure the system to match our environment. Most systems in this arena are tricky to use and hard to set up. Orchestrate took just a couple of days to learn. The team from Production Modelling got to grips with our processes – from raw materials to finished product -within days, and were able to demonstrate a ‘first draft’ system configured to our production processes within two weeks. After our critique, they came back with the finished product.”

“We have gone from signing off a purchase order to delivering a fully functional solution that delivers absolute benefits in only six weeks!"

“... and that in a situation where we have spent around one third of the cost of the nearest rival solution.”

So, what are the benefits?

Steve describes the benefits: “We use Orchestrate for both strategic and day-to-day capacity planning. Looking two, three, four years ahead, we can assess capacity, any potential restrictions, storage requirements and any demand for additional production capability. At a detailed level, we are able to plan weekly and day-to-day production to meet sales forecasts and to maintain appropriate stock levels to service NHS and other customers. Our products are crucial to the effective running of hospital or private care facilities.”

“What used to take a whole day for a planner can now be accomplished in twenty minutes. That doesn’t just mean eliminating the hassle, it means we can afford to run alternative scenarios, knowing that built-in KPI alerts will keep us on track.”

“Specific products have to be dedicated to certain production lines, while other lines can accommodate mixed products. Add to that the need to minimize the changing of tool heads and you can begin to appreciate the complexity. Orchestrate scheduling software allows us to manage and police which products run on which lines and for how long, maximizing efficiency and throughput.”

“The system also takes into account planned downtime for regular servicing. Our aggressive growth plan mean we will shortly are looking to increase our operations. Our strategic planning shows us how well Orchestrate will be able to accommodate that.”

Last word from Steve: “It has been a painless experience and I can be confident that the users really are self sufficient. Orchestrate will never be a drain on IT resources. It has also been refreshing to work with such a focused supplier. People who are very passionate about their solutions and who can also be pragmatic. When they say they will deliver – they really do.”

Why Use Simulation Software

We at Production Modelling are often asked "How can I best run the factory to achieve my business objectives yet at the same time, meet customer demands?" Manufacturers are continually being asked to increase production volumes in less time with less people and for less money. Trying new ideas out in the factory are all very well, but they can take time, be disruptive, very costly, and you may not get it right first time. Today’s managers can’t afford to take such risks when implementing change.

Experimenting with new ideas on a computer model before you make changes for real is simple common sense. It takes the risk out of change. This is where simulation software users have gained a competitive edge, an advantage that results in bottom-line benefits to their business.


Why not flowcharts or process mapping?

Many organisations use static modelling tools, such as flowcharts, process mapping, and spreadsheets. Flowcharts and process mapping tools have their place, but on their own, they merely show relationships between processes and generally don’t provide any quantitive performance measures.


Why not spreadsheets?

 Spreadsheets are very useful, and do have their place, but also have serious limitations.

• They are static models. This means that they cannot represent changes that occur with respect to time.
• They are deterministic – using constant values, approximations or averages rather than the variability that exists in real life.
• They can’t represent interdependencies. In other words, process steps are independent of each other. Again, a serious deficiency, as this limits the validity of the models.

At best, spreadsheets can give misleading results, and in many cases wildly inaccurate predictions. At worst, business decisions can be made on entirely inaccurate information. It’s no surprise that companies often wonder why the results from their spreadsheet models don’t match reality.

Here’s a simple illustration to prove why simulation is so important:

Picture a small cell where parts arrive on average every 30 seconds, queue for Machine1 or Machine 2, each of which takes on average of 1 minute to process

A spreadsheet model of this would show no queuing, 100% utilisation of the workstations, and average lead-time of 1 minute. In other words, a nicely balanced system.

Look what happens if we use variability. A normal, (bell-shaped), distribution of the same averages would be a more realistic way of representing the variability that exists in the real world.

Using a simulation model, running the process for just 8 hours, the results show a completely different (but more accurate) story. The machine utilisation is less than 100%, there are up to 13 jobs queuing for the machines, and the average lead time is over 5 minutes!!!

Imagine the difference in a more complex process, or if the process runs for a week or a month.

Click here to request a copy of this Model.


Why use Simulation Software?

This is why simulation software is so important. Simulation, and only simulation, takes into account the combined effect of variability, uncertainty, and complex interdependencies between processes
Production Modelling's simulation software is helping companies improve their businesses and become more competitive. Increasingly competitive markets bring new challenges and customers' demands are constantly changing. As a result, manufacturers need to become more responsive, more quickly, more efficiently, yet often within tighter budgets and timescales.

Production Modelling's simulation software is helping them to visualize, analyse and optimise their processes to achieve these business performance improvements.

Furthermore, simulation software is often used to help “sell” ideas to others to gain their commitment to change and show why one method will work better than another. The visual accuracy and animation of the model can provide a powerful communications tool. It can help speed up decisions affecting changes in the factory, and get people from the shop floor through to senior management all committed to the same ideas.

Capacity Planning / Production Scheduling within the Pharmaceutical Industry

Production Modelling’s flagship scheduling software system, Orchestrate, has become firmly established within the process industry and many users in the pharmaceutical industry have seen great success in its deployment.

Orchestrate assists with two areas of work where purpose built tools are few and far between. To begin with, it provides the process engineer with a user friendly tool for capacity analysis. Secondly, having invested much time and money in plant design, the same Orchestrate model can then be used for daily production scheduling and planning.

Orchestrate has seen an equal amount of success when integrated into plant design programmes and also as part of a programme to identify and solve bottleneck problems in existing, well established plants.

One of the world’s largest bio-pharmaceutical capital investments - Pfizer BioPharma Campus, West Dublin

Reduce Time To Market

There is much reference material with regards to process knowledge management as a method of accelerating time to market. In summary, if we could utilise that same data at the design stage, pilot stage and the commercial production stage, then there would be much to gain.

Orchestrate scheduling software extends this argument by providing a common dataset and interface for each individual stage of the production process. With Orchestrate scheduling software the plant can be operated identical assumptions and constraints to those used at the design stage.

As a result, another major advantage of using Orchestrate is that the software system can hold process templates for particular products and processes. Thus the company’s intellectual property can then be reused for the latest products and new plants. In effect, we would not need to “reinvent the wheel” every time we use the system. So, through using Orchestrate for new plant design, plant modification and daily planning, the plant design process can be accelerated and, therefore, we can decrease the time to market. Read more…….