Unlocking efficiency with S/4HANA PP/DS Scheduling Optimizer

In today’s competitive landscape, “doing more with less” is key for businesses seeking to improve efficiency and achieve cost savings. This is not only to ensure high utilisation of production equipment and resources but also to reduce manual, repetitive tasks and shift focus to more value-adding activities. 

We typically see a planning department spend between 20-40% of their time creating the detailed schedule manually – a process that can typically be reduced by 80%. (2024)

With S/4HANA PP/DS (Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling, formerly named ePP/DS), the Scheduling Optimizer is a powerful tool that can help do just that: reduce manual work and help optimise production schedules. 

Adopting S/4HANA PP/DS Scheduling Optimizer offers several advantages:

• Improved efficiency: By automating the scheduling process, planners can focus on value-adding activities instead of being bogged down by routine tasks.
• Reinvestment in better data: The time saved can be reinvested in improved master data, lead times, safety stocks, run rates etc., further improving the quality of plans and benefiting other organisational areas such as production and logistics.
• Improved accuracy: The optimiser’s precision in scheduling reduces the risk of human error and ensures a more reliable production plan.
• Increased speed of replanning: The optimiser allows for faster updates of the entire plan when replanning is needed, for example, in case of a line breakdown or similar.
• Increased productivity: Optimised schedules mean that resources are used effectively, leading to increased throughput and reduced bottlenecks.
• Standardised planning process and risk reduction: The optimiser allows us to standardise how we plan across the company, making the process more rule-based and less bound to what is inside the mind of the individual planners.