Waterloo History
Waterloo Manufacturing Software develops and markets the TACTIC advanced planning and scheduling system to discrete industry manufacturers worldwide.
University connections
Waterloo Manufacturing Software was founded in 1991. During 1991, the Founders began marketing, selling, and supporting the Waterloo Planning and Scheduling System (WATPASS) under a license agreement with a Canadian company. WATPASS was a finite capacity scheduling research tool developed at the University of Waterloo. The scheduling research, which was conducted over a five-year period, concentrated on ways to let management teams interact with manufacturing data and to combine their knowledge and intuition to develop achievable schedules as situations changed (e.g., new orders, breakdowns, delays, etc.).
In late 1991 Waterloo purchased all rights to WATPASS from the University researcher. The Founders improved WATPASS in several key areas. Improvements concentrated on:
- Improving its usability and what-if features
- Expanding its size so more manufacturing companies could use it
- Adding features for it to consider labor, tooling, cost and material constraints
TACTIC
TACTIC embodies the results of the WATPASS improvement efforts. TACTIC was introduced at the AUTOFACT 91 exposition in Chicago, Illinois.
Software roots
Prior to 1991, the Founders were all part of the management team and minority stockholders at Istel Incorporated. The Istel Incorporated majority stockholder was Istel Ltd., a privately held British firm. In late 1989 Istel Incorporated and Istel Ltd. were purchased by AT&T.
At Istel Incorporated, the Founders successfully developed and then obtained a significant share of the manufacturing simulation market with a visual interactive simulation software product called Witness. Witness empowered manufacturing engineers with a what-if capability that allowed them to test and communicate the trade-offs associated with installing new automation technology, such as new machinery, to improve their competitiveness.
During the process of developing Witness and building the business, the market need to continuously balance customer needs with business needs as problems and changes occur became apparent. The realization of that need, and the experience gained from developing the Witness business, formed the basis for the sophisticated TACTIC what-if features and the Waterloo unique support services and solution selling business strategies.