The combination of Project Management and Teaching is how I got my start in Supply Chain. I had project management experience from my engineering career where I was designing, building, starting up and optimizing specialty chemical plants around the USA. In 2001, I was the Technical Manager for a plant in Charlotte, NC and I …
Read more
Tag Archives: Scheduling
In this case study, Profit Point’s client wanted to find a more automated and better way to create and maintain the production schedule across several batch reactors and schedulers. As a result, we engaged with the customer to design a production scheduling tool using Aspen Tech’s Aspen Plant SchedulerTM.
Read more
Read more
Recently I was at an event where I knew the host and her family but not too many other people. As the guests introduced themselves to each other, the dreaded question came up. What do you do? I have come to dread this question. For the first part of my career, my answer was …
Read more
Read more
Recently Mark Rockey posted a blog about the 5 characteristics of Advanced Production Scheduling Tools. Around the same time, I was asked by a client about the differences between SAP (PPDS) and Aspen Plant Scheduler (SCM/MIMI) and I thought this would be a good follow-up to Mark’s blog. Here is what we at Profit Point …
Read more
Read more
There are many production scheduling tools available commercially. Some are more tailored to specific environments (such as a specific type of manufacturing) while others are applicable to a wide range of applications. When we talk about Advanced Production Scheduling Tools, there are certain characteristics that we have in mind including the following: 1) Both materials …
Read more
Read more
At Profit Point, our consulting team has over a century of combined experience implementing Aspen Supply Chain Management (MIMI) solutions. Although the concepts for developing a model are similar from plant to plant, there is nothing quite like getting boots on the ground to truly understand the client needs. With that philosophy in mind, a …
Read more
Read more
Frequently when we work with clients to implement decision support tools for supply chain scheduling and planning, they often have some unique constraint that is essential to model and may be unique to their environment. Some recent examples we have encountered include the following: When producing a batch in a make to order environment, the …
Read more
Read more
My day started out ordinary: Tea, checking emails, and weekly team meeting. Little did I know that I was in store for some mystery, detours, and redemption. It all started with a few email requests at the beginning of my day.
Read more
Read more
For years we’ve been hearing about Big Data. Now the call is to make the data visible and actionable. Easier said than done. Remember when we wanted our music, phone and camera on one device instead of having to carry multiple devices? Data Visualization is that desirable right now and it is challenging to do …
Read more
Read more
Here at Profit Point, we typically put in a fair amount of effort up front to scope out a project together with our client. This typically helps us and our client to set appropriate expectations and develop mutually agreeable deliverables. These are key to project success. But another key element to project success is …
Read more
Read more
Profit Point has been helping companies apply mathematical techniques to improve their business decisions for 20 years now, and it is interesting to review some of the advances in technology that have occurred over this time that have most enabled us to help our clients, including: • The ability for companies to capture, store and …
Read more
Read more
Profit Point is helping several large chemical manufacturers upgrade their many Aspen SCM scheduling models with a goal to achieving long term support-ability in the new Aspen architecture of ver 8.5. An Aspen SCM (MIMI) Upgrade is no small undertaking, but we have been helping people manage, support, and enhance their scheduling models for over 20 …
Read more
Read more