Effective production planning and scheduling is critical to obtaining the maximum profitability from plant assets. For different chemical companies, the challenges of planning and scheduling can vary dramatically. A company's business model, the nature of demand, and the issues involved in manufacturing changeovers and chemical production sequencing each have an impact on what an effective plan is and how schedules need to be managed. However, whether a company is custom-developing chemicals, making-to-order, or making-to-stock, SAP has solutions.

SAP for Chemicals provides planning and scheduling capabilities that support:

• Management of recipes and multi-level Bill of Materials
• Batch management and batch tracking
• Integration to quality management
• Integration to demand planning, supply network planning, and inventory management
• Integration to order fulfillment through Available to Promise
• Capacity and material feasible schedules
• Campaign planning
• Tank management
• Management of co-products and by-products
• Integration to manufacturing execution with process control/PI sheets

With SAP for Chemicals – and other related advanced planning and scheduling capabilities offered by SAP and its partners, like OR Soft – chemical companies can do a better job of fulfilling orders, scheduling equipment for maximum profitability, and efficiently coordinating procurement with production requirements – while limiting the need for inventory.

For more information about solutions that support production planning and scheduling for chemical companies, read more about SAP for Chemicals, SAP ERP Operations, SAP Lean Planning and Operations, SAP Advanced Planning & Optimization, and SAP partner OR Soft's Manufacturing Workbench.