Waterloo Manufacturing Software Releases Web-enabled Version of TACTIC

Wellesley, Massachusetts

Waterloo Manufacturing Software announces the release of version 4.0 of its TACTIC advanced finite capacity planning and scheduling (APS) system.

TACTIC is a PC based APS system designed to easily integrate with business systems (ERP/MRP II) or to operate stand-alone.  TACTIC explicitly and simultaneously considers a plant’s limited capacity and limited material when promising delivery, planning production, planning material, planning capacity, and dealing with changes and problems.  TACTIC’s sophisticated what-if features let management teams continuously balance what’s good for business with what’s good for customers, as they encounter changes and problems with increasingly complex tradeoffs.

TACTIC version 4.0 expands its order promising and status reporting features to web browsers.  The expanded features let manufacturers provide their field staff, vendors, suppliers, and customers Internet access to TACTIC’s detailed planning, scheduling, and status information.  Rapid access to this valuable data can help manufacturers improve sales, lower cost, and tie up less capital.

For example, field office staff can use their browsers to submit to TACTIC a request for best delivery for an order or change before acceptance.  TACTIC would receive the request; reschedule based on finite capacity, material availability, and priority rules to determine the best delivery, and then return the projected delivery date to the browser.  If the date is acceptable, the field office staff can immediately get the customer’s commitment, and then use their browser to tell TACTIC the order or change is accepted.  As new and change orders are accepted, and other status changes, such as production updates, occur, vendors, suppliers, and customers can use their browsers to quickly check TACTIC’s detailed status information.  Thus saving the time and cost to provide status information using more traditional methods.

Editors notes

Competitive pressures are increasingly forcing manufacturing management teams to quote ever-shorter lead-times, to offer ever-changing options, and to ensure ever-higher levels of on-time delivery.  Furthermore, they’re being challenged to perform without excessive inventory, without increasing costs, and without what later turns out to be too much of the wrong capacity.  The potential adverse effects are particularly acute for the component and subassembly portion of the original equipment manufacturing supply chain.  For these businesses, constant changes make cost-effectively balancing competitive lead-times against the efficient use of limited resources both crucial and difficult.

In the current era, management teams are increasingly turning to the TACTIC advanced finite capacity planning and scheduling system for help.  TACTIC explicitly and simultaneously considers their limited capacity and limited material as they promise delivery, plan production, plan material, plan capacity, and deal with changes and problems.  TACTIC projects the realistic effect on delivery, utilization, and inventory of new orders, order changes, material problems, production problems, vendor problems and business changes.

TACTIC possesses sophisticated what-if features.  These features let management teams quickly combine formal data (e.g., orders, routings, inventory, bills-of-material, and capacity limits) and intuition (i.e., what-if ideas).  TACTIC allows them to select the best what-if ideas to continuously balance what’s good for business with what’s good for customers, as they encounter changes and problems with increasingly complex tradeoffs.  TACTIC’s what-if features often provide significant visibility and flexibility improvements over reports, staff meetings, wallboards, and spreadsheets commonly used to project, simulate, and fix ever-increasing problems.

Management teams can use TACTIC standalone for planning, order promising, scheduling, and capacity management.  TACTIC can also be easily integrated with business systems.  TACTIC enables teams to better use their valuable business system data to overcome the finite capacity planning and scheduling limitations inherent in business systems.  Many teams have found that adding TACTIC saved them the cost, time, and disruption of replacing their business system to improve competitiveness.  In many cases, it helped them boost the return from their business system investment as well.  They used their business system data, TACTIC’s sophisticated what-if features, and the improved visibility and flexibility provided by TACTIC to simultaneously increase revenues, lower costs, and tie up less capital.

Waterloo Manufacturing Software develops and markets TACTIC to manufacturers worldwide.  TACTIC and associated support services are offered to U.S. manufacturing companies from offices located in Boston, Cleveland and Los Angeles.  TACTIC is offered to other manufacturers through a network of distributors.

More information

If you have questions or need more information, feel free to e-mail Charles Murgiano at cjmurgiano@waterloo-software.com or call 216-382-2541.