News and Events
News
November 2011: SAPPHIRE 2011 in Madrid From 09th - 10th November 2011 the SAPPHIRE Now was held in Madrid/Spain. OR Soft was represented again as an exhibitor at this world's largest gathering of SAP experts with their own booth. The event focused business analytics and mobility, which this year was an information platform for customers, partners, users, IT professionals, administrators and programmers at the same time. Within the Forum Better Run OR Soft presented Add-ons for SAP ERP in the field of Advanced Planning and Scheduling and gave insights into the latest product developments. Visitors have been given information on OR Soft's solution offerings based on the ORSOFT Manufacturing Workbench, industry solutions for food processing, manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries and ORSOFT for Healthcare as a tool for multi-ressource planning in hospitals.
November 2011: Medica 16th to 19th November 2011 At the Medica fair in Düsseldorf OR Soft presented ORSOFT for Healthcare, an application for the multi-ressource planning in hospitals. In particular, an expansion of the solution for the clinic planning was shown, which provides simultaneously scheduling of time offers and doctors on duty. The results are stored in SAP IS-H as the main system and transferred to the Outlook calendar of the doctors involved. Particularly Patients managers found interest in the system.
May 2011: OR Soft is a success in the USA
With three successful live implementations for Danone, Schmolz + Bickenbach and Nordenia at their American sites White Plains, Carol Stream and Jackson, OR Soft has made a successful foray into the North-American continent in 2011. With entirely different topics, master data maintenance, online CTP testing and production planning, OR Soft demonstrates an attractive range of services that are competitive on an international level.
May 2011: Production Planning - User Focus
From 25th to 27th May 2011 the
7th OR Soft User Convention took place in Halle/Saale. 86 experts from 50 international companies came together to discuss industry-wide issues of supply chain management. These included the successful planning of complex production structures, the potential benefits of an individualized standard planning solution as well as the automation of planning and optimization.
Speakers, renowned experts and practitioners in the subject area, reported on successful projects i.e. at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Danone Group, Heye International, Nordenia and ZF Passau. OR Soft explained latest solutions and provided insights into future developments.
With lecture topics from the field and associated events, the convention provides a platform for interdisciplinary exchange wich has a firm place in the calendar of many supply chain managers already.
The lectures can be requested here.
May 2011: E-3 cover story
The well-known SAP IT magazine E-3 presents OR Soft in its cover story and reports on current challenges in production planning and the support of online CTP processes using modern, lean software. Reports by OR Soft's customers on the planning of installation processes (Heye International GmbH), automatic optimization (Aluminiumschmelzwerk Oetinger GmbH), the simultaneous planning of make-to-order and make-to-stock processes (Nordenia IT Services GmbH), the algorithmic-based automatic detailed planning (WIBERG GmbH) and the planning in hospitals (Jena University Hospital) display a broad spectrum of services. Request PDF (german) by e-mail.
April 2011: Microsoft Gold partnership
After successful certification as a Microsoft Certified Partner in 2010 OR Soft has achieved the status of a Microsoft Gold Independent Software Vendor. Having had the interface side of OR Soft solutions certified and recommended by SAP for a long time at various levels, with this step OR Soft also declares a quality seal for the application side as a Microsoft application.
March 2011: Solutions for foremen
OR Soft is well-known for advanced planning and scheduling software. However, by also incorporating the logistics chain solutions can generate a considerable added value for the foremen on the production line. For the first time, OR Soft is introducing such solutions as a package of software, modern visualization and entry hardware, with so-called composite control stations.
November 2010: Oetinger Group
The Oetinger Group is one of the leading producers of customer-specific aluminium casting alloys in Europe with 5 production sites in Germany and France. Just-in-time deliveries of aluminium alloys - the majority of those are delivered in liquid form - have to be assured, while at the same time achieving a high utilization of the smelting furnaces. By optimal composition of input materials (charge makeup), taking into account up to 31 quality parameters, it is possible to reduce material costs by up to 15%. OR Soft Manufacturing Workbench supports scheduling and optimization of charge makeup with an intuitive graphical user interface and powerful algorithms - based on heuristics and mathematical optimization - that can be executed by clicking buttons. It allows Oetinger to keep their established evolutionary planning process, even after implementation of the standard SAP ERP in a very specific and complex technological environment. Karl Dieing, Chief Information Officer of Oetinger Group, stated that "Changeover from our old individual ERP system to SAP ERP would not have been possible without Manufacturing Workbench". The solution was first implemented at site Weissenhorn and went into productive use in April 2010. Oetinger plans the roll-out into productive use at the other German sites Hannover, Berlin and Neu-Ulm in April 2011.
October 2010: Heye International GmbH
Bernhard Schneeweiss, Manager of Logistics Department at Heye International GmbH, responsible for Materials Management and Manufacturing Planning: "Following a thorough research of potential vendors we decided to implement OR Soft Manufacturing Workbench, because this solution transparently visualizes our complex assembly processes, allows short notice adjustments of schedules and is fully integrated into our SAP environment." Heye International GmbH in Obernkirchen, Germany, is a leading supplier of expert services & solutions and high performance equipment to the container glass industry.
September 2010: 20 years of OR Soft
OR Soft Jaenicke GmbH celebrated its 20th Jubilee on September 1st 2010. Started from a local university research group with 4 members, OR Soft advanced over the last 20 years to become one of the leading suppliers of Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) Add-Ons for SAP ERP. These Add-Ons enable customers to distinguish themselves from competitors by implementation of their specific business processes based on a standard software and thus to gain a competitive edge. SAP AG recommends OR Soft Manufacturing Workbench as a SAP-endorsed business solution in cases where SAP SCM is not applicable. Today OR Soft has 58 employees, has continuously been in the black for 20 years and is well positioned for the future with its procuct lines ORSOFT Manufacturing Workbench(adressing APS topics such as Simultaneous Material and Capacity Planning, Sales and Operations Planning), ORSOFT for Healthcare and ORSOFT Master Data Workflow.
Publications and Lectures
The following articles and lectures are available via e-mail request:
"Production planning in the aluminium recycling industry made easy with an add-on to SAP® ERP", International Aluminium Journal 7-8/2010, S. 48-50
"Solution for flask scheduling in a foundry", Casting Plant & Technology 1/2009, S. 38-42
"PTQ Biofuels roundtable", biofuels plant & technology 2008, S. 5-7
"Integration of Scheduling with ERP-Systems", Book "Logistics of Chemical Production Processes", S. 263-277
"Advanced Planning and Scheduling for the oil and petrochemicals industry", Hydrocarbon Engineering 10/2007, S. 59-63
"Visual representation of material flows in chemical plant systems - An approach based on SCHEDULE++", Book "Supply Chain Optimisation", 247-261
"ESA and Industry Value Networks: Customer Value with Industry Ecosystems", SAPPHIRE Paris, a lecture held by SAP AG
"Improvement of production processes through production performance management at Boehringer Ingelheim", ACHEMA, a lecture held by Dr. Heider from Boehringer-Ingelheim