Advanced Process Combinatorics

Do You Make Stuff or Things?

Manufacturing processes may be classified into two categories. Some factories make things, like toothbrushes or shoes, while others make stuff, like cereal or pharmaceuticals. Factories that make things deal with intermediate materials that you can hold in your hand, e.g. leather or toothbrush handles, and that can be stored on shelves or even on the factory floor. Factories that make stuff primarily deal with intermediates in fluid or fine solid form. These materials must be stored in vessels.

Why is Making Stuff More Difficult to Manage?

When managing facilities that make things, it is often sufficient to ensure that material is produced before it is needed. So why is that not sufficient when managing facilities that make stuff?

Suppose you had the opportunity to purchase three year's supply of toothpaste at 1/4 the normal price provided you take delivery today? Sounds great, you will save money and the can reasonably expect to consume the inventory over three years. Storage is not really a consideration, a three year supply of toothpaste can fit under your bed.

How would the situation change if, instead of toothpaste, you were offered a three year supply of gasoline at $1 a gallon, to be delivered today. On paper this deal looks even better, you can save a lot of money. Then again, what will you do with 6,000 gallons gasoline this afternoon? When you are dealing with stuff, storage matters.

This simple example illustrates the danger of using a scheduling system designed to make things, when you are dealing with stuff. If you have a processing facility, don't make the mistake of installing a scheduling system designed for a shoe factory. Making stuff is different.

VirtECS was designed from the ground up to handle the more rigorous demands of scheduling facilities that require detailed management of intermediate material inventories. For example, VirtECS can manage limited available storage, process vessels that can temporarily store material (which blocks further processing), no intermediate storage, degassing constraints that require a set duration of storage time, a limited number of heated, stirred, or cooled intermediate storage vessels, etc. Of course VirtECS can also handle facilities that make things, not having to manage intermediate storage makes these problems simpler.