Key features

Browse the documentation by functional areas, and dig into the topics you are interested in.


Demand forecasting

Feature

Description

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Statistical forecast

The forecasting algorithm implements forecast methods for:

  • Constant demand (single exponential smoothing)

  • Trending demand (double exponential smoothing)

  • Seasonal demand (Holt-Winters additive method)

  • Intermittent demand (Croston method)

  • Moving average.

The system automatically selects and tunes the best method that gives the lowest forecast error.

Outlier detection and correction

Automatic detect and to exceptionally low or high demands:

The algorithm also implements a filter to reduce the impact of outliers on the generated statistical forecast (net forecast).

Multi-dimensional and hierarchical review

Review forecast and demand history at any level of item, location, customer, and time hierarchies.

Automatic disaggregation of edits

Enter values at higher levels of the item, location, customer, and time hierarchies. The values are automatically distributed to lower levels.

Forecast consumption

Sales orders consume from the gross forecast.

The sales orders and the remaining net forecast make up a complete and consistent demand for the complete planning horizon.

Inventory planning

Feature

Description

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Safety stock calculation based on service level

Safety stocks are computed based on your desired service level. The system considers demand and supply variability.

Safety stock min. and max. configuration

Set a minimum and maximum in quantity and days-of-demand for safety stocks.

Optimal reorder quantity calculation

Apply an economic formula for reorder quantities in accordance with stocking and order processing costs.

Reorder quantity min.and max. configuration

Set a default minimum and maximum in quantity and days-of-demand for reorder quantities.

Mass-maintenance of inventory policies

Apply inventory policies to segments that group item-locations based on item, location, or demand attributes for easier inventory management.

Exception based workflows

Improve the planner’s productivity by focussing the work on problem areas in the plan.

Distribution planning

Feature

Description

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Generate distribution plan

FrePPLe generates constrained & unconstrained distribution plans.

Kitting

Forecast and plan kits separately. The kitting operations automatically generate requirements for their components.

Inventory rebalancing

Make proposals to move excess stock between locations. Control the cost and quantity thresholds to identify opportunities for rebalancing.

Push mode

Push your stock to shops. With frePPLe, you can fully deplete an item from a warehouse and distribute them to children locations even if they have no demand for that product.

Fair share constraint resolution

Distribute shortages proportionally across all locations.

Purchase based on overall network inventory

Supress new purchase orders if other locations in the network still have excess inventory.

Production planning & scheduling

Feature

Description

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Production planning

The supply chain model spans end-to-end from raw material suppliers till the finished goods across multiple production locations, warehouses, distribution centers, subcontractors, and suppliers.

Capacity planning

FrePPLe’s capacity plan provides a timely visibility of upcoming capacity bottlenecks, giving you the opportunity to evaluate different scenarios. As such, it can be used in mid-term capacity planning processes.

Production scheduling

Use frePPLe to generate detailed short-term production schedules. You can then visualize your plan in an interactive Gantt chart and make final adjustments.

Due date quoting at order entry

Compute a feasible delivery date for a new order on the fly. The promised delivery date considers all capacity and material constraints as well as reservations for other open sales orders.

Make-to-order, make-to-stock and assemble-to-order

Make-to-order, make-to-stock and assemble-to-order products are all supported.

Exception based workflows

Improve the planner’s productivity by focussing the work on problem areas in the plan.

Theory of constraints

A supply chain can only be as fast as the most constraining link.

FrePPLe generates plans that will follow the pace of the bottleneck:

  • Capacity is not allocated until all materials are available. There is no point in reserving capacity for operations that can’t start.

  • Material schedules are aligned with the available capacity. Don’t feed components to an assembly line faster than the production rate.

  • Coordinate subassemblies i.e. if one of the components or subassemblies is constrained and late, the schedule of the other components are aligned to match its availability.

DDMRP (Demand Driven MRP)

FrePPLe aligns well with the principles of DDMRP and implements the base concepts.

Backward and forward scheduling modes

In backward scheduling mode, the planning algorithm counts backward from the due date of the demand for a just-in-time completion of the order.

In forward scheduling mode, the planning algorithm tries to deliver each order ASAP.

Constrained and unconstrained modes

FrePPLe can generate different plan types:

  • Simple unconstrained plan: similar to a simple MRP run in an ERP. It plans all demands on time but overloads resources and plans operations in the past.

  • Fully constrained plans: all constraints are met and demand is planned late or short in shortage situations.

  • Smart unconstrained plan: intelligently searches all alternates to meet demand on time respecting all constraints, and only plans the portion of the demand that can absolutely not be met on time in an unconstrained way. This results is an unconstrained plan that shows only the “real” shortages.

Fast heuristic solver algorithm

FrePPLe uses a heuristic planning algorithm, that can provide constrained and unconstrained plans.

The algorithm goes through the following loop:

  1. first order all the demands by priority, then by due date

  2. loop over each demand in the list:

    1. search backward from the due date for all capacity and material that the demand requires. This search will net any existing inventory, then evaluate alternative operations and capacity.

    2. if the above search didn’t find a feasible solution to deliver the demand on time, the search is repeated in forward scheduling mode to deliver ASAP with minimal delay.

This approach results in a fast plan generation that intelligently allocates constrained supply to the most important and urgent demands.

Odoo integration

Feature

Description

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Maintain all data in odoo

All master data and transactions are managed by Odoo. The frepple connector is an odoo addon that synchronizes all planning to frePPLe.

Publish manufacturing orders and purchase orders

Publish planning results back to odoo. With a simple click the planners can create manufacturing orders and purchase orders in odoo.

Integrated user interface

The frepple user interface is integrated in odoo. Users log in odoo and can navigate from odoo to all frepple screens.

Capacity modeling

Feature

Description

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Resource types

Different types of capacity constraints can be modeled:

  • capacity limit expressed as the number of simultaneous tasks

  • available capacity expressed as quantity per time bucket

  • available capacity expressed as hours per time bucket

  • unconstrained infinite-capacity resources or unconstrained)

Working hours and vacations

Define calendars based on working hours, shifts, factory shutdowns, holiday periods, etc.

Resource pools

Group identical/similar resources (machines or operators) in an aggegrated pool of resources.

Resource skills

Assign skills to machines and operators and set them as necessary to perform specific operations. As a result, only a subset of the available resources will be qualified to do the operation.

Alternate resources

The planning and scheduling algorithm can choose among alternative resources from a pool. The selection can be priority-based or cost-based.

Setup matrix

Include changovers in your planning process. Sequence-dependent changeover time corresponds to cleaning, configuration, or tool changing time that is required when switching between different resources (machines or operators) during the production process.

Routing and bill of materials

Feature

Description

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Operation types

Operations of different types can be modeled:

  • operations with a fixed duration, regardless of the quantity.

  • operations with a variable duration, proportional to the quantity.

  • routing operations that represent a sequence of operations.

  • alternate operations that represent a choice among alternatives.

  • split operations that proportionally distribute across alternatives.

Alternate operations

Products can be manufactured in different ways:

  • multiple routings to produce the same item

  • different versions of the bill of material

  • make-or-buy: choose whether to produce in-house or buy from a supplier

  • make-or-outsource: choose whether to produce in-house or to outsource an operation to a subcontractor.

FrePPLe can plan these and automatically make a smart selection between the alternatives. The selection can be priority-based or cost-based.

Alternates can be date-effective and quantity restrictions.

Alternate materials

You can plan different versions of a bill of materials and include alternate materials in a same bill of material.

Date effective bill of materials and operations

FrePPLe can suggest different versions of the bill of material with valid start and end dates.

Co-products

Operations can produce multiple items. Examples:

  • a sorting operation that produces items of different quantities or sizes

  • an operation that produces a by-product in addition to the intended item.

Minimum, maximum, and multiple operation size

Some operations can only be scheduled within certain quantity constraints. This applies to purchase orders, distribution orders and manufacturing orders.

Post-operation delay

The plan can include delays between operations. These add buffer time and robustness in the schedule to account for unexpected events.

The post-operation delay is a soft constraint, which means we can generate plans with a shorter delay if that is required to deliver a customer order on time.

Operation dependencies

Operations are chained together through bill of materials (typical for most manufacturing environments) or through operation dependencies (typical for project-oriented manufacturing environments).

User interface

Feature

Description

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Web-based user interface

No installation is required on user’s computers.

FrePPLe supports Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari and other modern web browsers.

Multi-lingual

Available in English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, simplified and traditional Chinese.

The language is detected automatically from the user’s browser, and can be overriden as a user preference.

Our user community often contribute translations for other languages.

Collaborative workflows

Integrates efficient and intuitive collaboration capabilities.

The user interface allows users to get notifications on changes in the plan. Notifications can be inline in the application, or through emails.

Users can comment on the plan and attach documents.

Excel import and export

You can easily export the contents of all reports in Excel or CSV.

Customizable screens

Each user can customize the reports to his/her needs and taste: visibility and order of the columns, column width, sorting and filtering.

Role-based permissions

Specify read, write, and view permissions per user or per user role.

What-if scenarios

A scenario is a complete sandbox copy of the database. You can change any data element in a scenario without impacting the other scenarios.

Typical use cases:

  • Simulating different business scenarios

  • Separate long-term planning process (S&OP) and short-term scheduling processes

  • Use scenarios for business units that are completely unrelated (i.e. no shared materials or resources).

Dashboard for KPIs

The main screen is a dashboard that displays key metrics of the plan.

Customize your own dashboard easily to fit your decision process and business KPIs. You can organize the layout to visualize the KPIs that are relevant for your role and responsibility.

The dashboard can be customized with addon.

Integration

Feature

Description

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Integrated data maintenance

Data that is not maintained in external systems can be managed in frePPLe.

Excel import and export

Import and export Excel data files for all reports.

CSV import and export

Import and export CSV data files for all reports.

REST API

A web-based JSON-REST API allows frePPLe to be integrated online with other applications.

Packaged connectors with ERP systems

Generic standard connectors for Odoo, Openbravo and Etendo are available.

Remote automation

All administrative tasks can be remotely managed through a web-based API.

Deployment

Feature

Description

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Cloud deployment

Our secure cloud infrastructure allows to get up and running in a fast and scalable way. The majority of our customers use the Cloud Edition.

On-site deployment

For security or policy reasons, you can install frePPLe on your own servers.

Monthly release cycle

The frequency of major releases is about one per year. A minor or patch release is available about once a month.

Migration scripts are available to move the database to a new release without reloading or losing data.

Technology

Feature

Description

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Built on open-source stack

The front-end web application is based on HTML, jquery and AngularJS. The back-end infrastructure is written in Python, Django, and PostgreSQL. The planning algorithms are implemented in C++ and can be scripted with Python.

Extendable platform with apps

You can code addons to extend the application with custom reports, data fields, and custom planning logic.

Designed for Linux and the cloud

Deploy on-premise on Ubuntu or as a Docker container. Or use the Cloud Edition hosted by us.

Pricing

Feature

Description

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Free open-source Community Edition

The core product is available in an open-source Community Edition.

Cloud and Enterprise Editions

These editions provide extra features, plus enterprise-grade support.

Free trial period

You can try out the cloud edition for 30 days for free.

Free for academic use

The Cloud Edition with all features is available for free for academic use. Contact us to apply.

Pricing is based on the model size and the modules chosen

Check out the price calculator on our website.

Unlimited number of users

The price is independent of the number of users.