Half the battle

Abstract

Supply chain planning is the generic term for software applications used by manufacturers to decide what products to build and when to build them-based on forecasts, current orders in-hand, and availability of needed resources. It also can be used to plan product distribution through networks of warehouses and other transit points, and to design such networks as well. Supply chain planning-unlike earlier generations of planning tools such as material requirements planning-makes use of advanced planning & scheduling (APS) technology, which allows for plan generation based on multiple constraints, including materials and capacity. However, some forms of planning, such as most finite scheduling packages, make use of simulation technology rather than APS.