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OMP provides an overview of the various tasks assigned to each planner. Any information that might be relevant can be added, such as the task due date or the name of a person needing to provide input before the task can be launched. By pressing the Finished button, the planner indicates she’s done with her input, automatically triggering colleagues to start theirs. This functionality is very useful in complex planning cycles where multiple people depend on the input of others.

OMP allows planners to visualize the supply chain in a flow chart format, clarifying any dependencies. Underlying information is available via click-throughs and tooltips, giving planners access to all key data in one user-friendly overview.

OMP calculates the consequences of any changes made, so it’s always easy to get an overview of the machines needed to produce a given product and its components. In addition, automatic alerts for stockouts and overloads due to quantity increases can be configured.

Planners can add comments whenever they create, delete or update a plan. These comments can be viewed or changed at any moment. Other contributors can reply to comments or amend them if needed. Comments can be searched or filtered using keywords or exported to an Excel file.

OMP allows planners working on different value streams to plan production on shared machines. Different planners may for example work in different time horizons. Or they could work in the same time horizon but be given specific quotas on shared machines.

OMP allows the parts of the supply chain visible to each planner to be defined. This allows planners to consult upstream or downstream plans or schedules on multiple levels.

OMP allows user profiles to be defined to assure conflict-free collaboration, preventing a planner accidently making changes to a colleague’s plan.

OMP allows paperless communication to be established between schedulers and the shop floor, for example through large displays in near real time. The update frequency can be configured, for example every hour or every minute, depending on plan stability.

Most OMP planning boards offer full Excel compatibility, meaning that you can simply copy the plan for a given product and paste it into an Excel file. For more advanced reporting you can use the OMP pivot functionality, with a user interface resembling Excel but offering more advanced conditional formatting and click-through options.

OMP offers dashboards indicating data likely to contain errors and needing validation. The data that are flagged could, for example, contain empty values, values outside the threshold, or inconsistencies. The flags help those in charge of master data to quickly spot anomalies without having to scan through large data sets, ensuring data quality while saving an enormous amount of time.

The OMP user interface gives planners easy access to additional information, which can be hidden when the planners are done with it. Information can be added to tooltips, dockable windows and pop-up dialogs, depending on how important the information is and when it is needed.

OMP conflict functionality checks for the presence of standard conflicts, and issues appropriate alerts. A comprehensive set of standard conflicts is covered including, for example, the risk of going out of stock or overloading machines. A severity level can be calculated for each conflict, allowing corrective actions to be scheduled in sequence. This is configurable. For example, the severity level of a stockout can be based on the predicted date, the extent to which it goes below zero, or a combination of the two.

In OMP, each conflict can be given a time horizon. This helps planners focus on the conflicts needing to be addressed within the horizon of their choice.

OMP offers a snooze option, allowing a conflict to be hidden for a time period to be determined by the planner. Planners can at any moment check which conflicts they snoozed. Where the physical stock count contradicts the alert, the stock position is corrected, and the conflict is removed automatically.

The look and feel of the OMP application is deliberately kept consistent over the various planning functions across the entire supply chain. A supply planner moving to demand planning, or vice versa, will intuitively understand how to use the dashboards and read the data.

There are multiple ways to do this. You can manually define a time horizon during which the solver will not touch the planned quantities, or you can ‘freeze’ individual plans so that they are ignored by the solver, or a combination of the two. More advanced selection criteria are also available.

In OMP, you can at any moment switch to scenario mode and start to run different types of simulations. The financial impact of each simulation can be calculated if cost and margin information is available. Every simulation can be complemented by notes and remarks that might be important in the decision-making process. When the most optimal scenario is chosen, it can be activated with a single click.

No, OMP is an end-to-end planning tool which includes both volume planning and detailed scheduling in one application. Every change in your schedule will immediately show in your volume-planning view, and vice versa.

OMP allows the S&OP numbers to be visualized as an extra line in the daily planning view for the purpose of comparison with the actual numbers. Alerts can be configured for differences exceeding set thresholds. OMP also allows a specific time horizon in the S&OP plan to be copied into the operational plan.

In OMP, a machine breakdown is registered as a calendar exception in the schedule. This will instruct the Gantt engine to automatically reposition the production orders based on the revised machine availability. Any conflict that might arise - for example a stockout - will be shown in the conflict overview.