<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/xhtml;charset=UTF-8"/> <title>Tutorial / What is frePPLe about? </title> <link rel='stylesheet' href='../styles.css' type='text/css' /> <!--PageHeaderFmt--> </head> <body> <div id="container"> <div id="menubar"> <div id="logo" align="center"> <br/><img src='../frepple.bmp' alt="frepple" /><br/> <a href='http://www.frepple.com/'> <strong>a Free<br/>Production Planning<br/>Library</strong> </a></div> <div id="menu"> <br/> <h3><a href='../Main/HomePage.html'>Main</a></h3> <h3><a href='../UI/Main.html'>User Manual</a></h3> <h3><a href='Main.html'>Tutorial</a></h3> <h3><a href='../Frepple/Main.html'>Reference Manual</a></h3> <h3><a href='../Main/FAQ.html'>FAQ</a></h3> <h3><a href='../reference/index.html'>C++ API</a></h3> <br/><div> </div> </div> </div> <div id="content"> <br/> <!--PageText--> <div id='wikitext'> <p><a class='wikilink' href='../Main/HomePage.html'>Main</a> > <span class='wikitrail'><a class='wikilink' href='Main.html'>frePPLe Tutorial</a> > <a class='selflink' href='Step1.html'>What is frePPLe about?</a></span> </p> <p class='vspace'>FrePPLe is a <strong><ins>lightweight</ins></strong> <strong><ins>open source</ins></strong> <strong><ins>framework</ins></strong> that easily and quickly delivers a solution for <strong><ins>production planning</ins></strong> problems.<br />The primary focus is on discrete manufacturing industry. </p> <p class='vspace'>The keywords from the above mission statement are clarified a bit further: </p> <div class='vspace'></div><ul><li><strong>Production Planning</strong>:<br /> The term production planning refers to a number of planning processes used in manufacturing industries. The processes all deal with balancing demand and supply, and/or using the available capacity, time and material as efficient as possible.<br /> The subprocesses vary widely in their focus and usage: business area (such procument, distribution, production, ...), time horizon (short term/execution, mid term/tactical, or long term/strategic), etc...<br /> FrePPLe is a solid toolkit for each of these processes. Using the toolkit more specialised applications are then developed to address your specific problem.<br /> contains a number of links to external sites with more background information. <div class='vspace'></div></li><li><strong>Open Source</strong>:<br /> The "Open Source Model" is a very pragmatic way of evolving software in a rapidly changing environment. It leverages the collective wisdom, experiences, expertise and requirements to obtain a high quality product. <div class='vspace'></div></li><li><strong>Framework</strong>:<br /> A one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work. Different business processes, different industries and different technical infrastructure all require a different solution. <br /> FrePPLe is designed to be modular, extendible and customizable. Customizing is possible at three levels: 1) scripting, 2) user interface and 3) core library.<br /> A section further on in this tutorial will clarify how this is done. <div class='vspace'></div></li><li><strong>Lightweight</strong>:<br /> FrePPLe is before all intended to simple, lite and generic. For small and medium size companies it should be the next step when a planning process grows beyond the complexity a simple spreadsheet can cope with. </li></ul><p class='vspace'>The input data model the different aspects of your manufacturing environment.<br />FrePPLe will run some planning algorithms on the data to generate plans as output that answer the following questions: </p><ul><li><strong>Demand plan</strong>: How has the demand been satisfied? What demand will be planned late or short? </li><li><strong>Capacity plan</strong>: How are the resources loaded? </li><li><strong>Manufacturing plan</strong>: What operations are planned in our plants? </li><li><strong>Purchasing plan</strong>: What and when do we need to order from our material suppliers? </li><li><strong>Inventory plan</strong>: How much inventory will be available? </li><li><strong>Problems</strong>: Highlights exception conditions in the plans, such as capacity overloads, late orders, material shortages, etc... </li></ul><div class='vspace'></div><div><img src='../uploads/Tutorial/inputoutput.png' alt='' title='' /></div> </div> <!--PageFooterFmt--> <!--HTMLFooter--> </div></div> </body> </html>
