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Helping you optimise planning - Quintiq

Friday, November 20, 2015

Quintiq, a supply chain software company owned by Dassault Systems, has developed a layered software solution for optimising scheduling and planning, which can be used by the oil and gas industry (and any other industry which needs to schedule people and assets).

The basic idea of computer optimising is simple to understand. Like a chess computer, the computer can quickly evaluate millions of different options, give them all a score, and then present you with the best possible option.

But perhaps what is not very well recognised is how many different industry scenarios the system could be used for - and how much better the computer can be than a human being, and how easy it is to set up.

Many oil, gas and petrochemical planning challenges could be described as 'puzzles' - working out the way to get the highest return on capital investment and enabling planners to make the decisions in line with their particular Key Performance Indicators, Quintiq says.

Altogether, Quintiq has 12,000 users around the world, serving many different industries, including the market leaders in rolled aluminium production, retail, express delivery, rail freight, powder coatings, glass production, steel production and energy.

Examples

To illustrate the importance of optimization technology, Quintiq presented a simple secondary distribution puzzle at a workshop attended by Digital Energy Journal.

The workshop audience, representing the planner, was asked to work out the optimal routing for six tankers, serving 43 delivery locations from one oil depot, at the lowest cost.

The routing was first worked out manually, which visually looked like a good solution, but after running the optimisation technology, the computer software calculated a solution which could be performed with only 4 tankers (compared to 6) and 8 per cent less miles.

In a second industry example, a vessel scheduler was required to determine the optimal route for picking up and delivering ten vessel cargoes, each with a pick-up and delivery location specific product and time window, with only one vessel.

There were a number of constraints. Some ports had a specific delivery window which the vessel needed to arrive in, otherwise there would be a penalty. The vessel was carrying a mixture of clean and dirty cargoes, and needed cleaning after carrying a dirty cargo (before carrying a clean one), all entailing cleaning costs and time. There were costs attached to the vessels' time and the vessel's fuel (per distance). There were specific cargoes to be delivered (for example load in Rotterdam, discharge in Oslo).

The only task the scheduler had to do was determine the optimal route for picking up and delivering the orders to minimize the costs.

Optimising might appear to be a simple task, given that you would want to organise the voyages in a logical order (Rotterdam to Oslo, Oslo to Bergen and so on) and minimise tank washing.

But what was surprising was how much better the optimised solution (by computer) was than the schedule the workshop audience could come up with. The workshop audience created a schedule which cost $40,000 and involved one late delivery; the computer created a schedule which cost $30,000 with everything arriving on time.

A second more complex example was presented for offshore oil and gas operations, where an operator had a list of interventions they wished to make on their offshore platforms, and the usual constraints (availability of vessels, limited anchor slots on the platform, limited bed space). Each intervention would lead to a certain amount of improved production, and had a certain cost (both direct and in terms of down time).

The workshop audience put together a schedule which would generate $800m for the operator. But the computer system managed to make a schedule which would generate $900m.

Moving further, the software could be used to help you maximise your KPI performance for a range of tasks. Using software like this, you can use the KPIs to 'drive' the business decisions - in other words, instead of calculating KPIs after you have done everything, you can organise your work in the way that maximises the KPIs.

The software could be used to help you respond to client last minute requests. For example, in the vessel scheduling example above, if one of the clients says that they really need the delivery as soon as possible, you can ask the optimiser to come up with an optimum schedule taking this constraint in mind. You can see the minimum it will cost to deliver this client's cargo earlier, and then ask the client if they are willing to pay this additional cost.

On the other hand, you might suddenly be offered with a business opportunity (e.g. I need a vessel right now) and you can see how much it would cost to answer it, even if it involves completely rescheduling everything.

You can use it to answer 'what if' questions. For example, if the software is used to plan manning, you can use it to answer questions like, what will be the impact of adding an extra shift?

You might have 'hard' and 'soft' constraints (for example, a 'hard' constraint is something which would increase risk beyond acceptable limits, but a 'soft' constraint could be one which increases costs).

The planner can take all of this into account when working out the optimum schedule, but speed is of the essence when your organisation copes with larger numbers of resources and activities, stressing the importance of aligning human intelligence with innovative technology, hence the theme of the conference.

Quintiq offers 4 different planning capabilities, described as '100%-fit,' 'KPI-based planning,' 'scenario-based planning,' and 'real-time optimisation.' Together, these elements enables them to build a tool to help you solve your planning challenge.

Most Quintiq engagements begin with a scan/vision presentation, to better understand the specific planning 'puzzle' that you have and explaining how Quintiq addresses and solves those puzzles for existing customers throughout a variety of industries.

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