An overview of the advanced planning and scheduling systems

Currently, the activities of the planning and control of companies are becoming increasingly complex and the managers of this area are constantly pressured to reduce operating costs, maintain inventories at adequate levels, to fully meet the demand of customers, and to respond effectively to changes that occur. The planning and scheduling task is important for most companies, so according to some authors, there is a need for further analysis of the practical use of production planning and control systems. Within the context of production planning and control systems development, in the 1990s were launched the APS systems, which represent an innovation when compared to their predecessors. This paper intended to provide through a literature review, the concepts, structure, capabilities, implementation process and benefits of using APS systems in the companies production planning and control. The main contribution of this research is to show a strong conceptual understanding regarding APS systems, which can be used as a solid theoretical reference for future researches