Partner of the month: ATS Global France – Global excellence in Opcenter APS implementation

1. Could you tell us about your company and your experience working with Opcenter APS?

Thomas: ATS is a worldwide reseller and integrator of Opcenter APS with diverse teams across multiple regions, including the USA, France, UK, and the Netherlands. We provide both local and global Opcenter APS projects, allowing us to support manufacturers at any scale—whether they’re looking for regional implementations or enterprise-wide deployments.

Our strength lies in our ability to combine deep local market expertise with global best practices. This means our clients benefit from understanding their specific regional challenges while also gaining access to proven methodologies and processes we’ve refined across decades of international engagements.

Opcenter APS has been instrumental in helping us deliver measurable value to our customers. Its flexibility, advanced algorithms, and seamless integration capabilities with ERP and MES systems make it an outstanding solution for manufacturers seeking to take control of their production planning. What particularly impresses us is how the platform adapts to both discrete and process manufacturing environments.

2. What’s your approach to implementing Opcenter APS for clients, and what makes it unique?

Thomas: Our implementation approach is built on a philosophy of local expertise with global scalability. Here’s what sets us apart:

Local Project Teams: We can provide dedicated local teams with deep knowledge of regional manufacturing practices, regulatory requirements, and business cultures. This ensures implementations are contextually appropriate and meet specific local needs.

Core Model Deployment: Beyond individual installations, we’ve developed the capability to deploy a Core Model across multiple countries, enabling our clients to drive truly global APS initiatives while maintaining consistency. This approach allows companies to optimize their production planning across international facilities without losing the benefits of standardization.

Collaborative Approach: We work closely with clients’ operations and production teams to understand their current processes, bottlenecks, and strategic goals. This collaborative methodology ensures that Opcenter APS isn’t just implemented—it’s embedded into the client’s operational DNA.

What makes our approach unique is our emphasis on both implementation excellence and long-term partnership. We believe in empowering our customers to fully understand and optimize their scheduling strategies, ensuring sustained adoption and continuous improvement over time.

3. Can you share a specific customer success story where Opcenter APS solved a significant challenge?

Thomas: One project that stands out involves SODIAAL, a major French dairy company. In 2022, SODIAAL recognized that their legacy Advanced Planning and Scheduling solution (OMP Partners) was becoming outdated and unable to meet their evolving operational needs.

Our Solution:
We implemented Opcenter APS in combination with ANAPLAN (Anaplan’s S&OP solution) and seamless integration with their SAP ERP system. This integrated approach provided:

• Advanced Scheduling Capabilities: Handling the complexity of dairy production processes, including cleaning operations and regulatory compliance requirements.
• Demand Planning Integration: ANAPLAN provided sales and operations planning capabilities, feeding accurate demand forecasts into Opcenter APS for optimized scheduling.
• ERP Integration: Seamless connection with SAP enabled real-time synchronization of data across the enterprise.

Implementation & Results:
We created a robust Core Model that was successfully deployed across three production plants in France. The implementation was so successful that SODIAAL is currently extending the solution to their new production facility in Canada, demonstrating the scalability and effectiveness of our approach.

Key Outcomes:

• Improved production schedule visibility and optimization across multiple facilities
• Enhanced coordination between demand planning and production operations
• Successfully transferred proven processes and methodologies to a new international location
• Positioned SODIAAL for scalable, standardized production planning across global operations

4. What trends are you seeing in manufacturing planning and scheduling, and how does Opcenter APS address them?

Thomas: The manufacturing landscape is rapidly evolving, and we’re witnessing significant shifts in how companies approach production planning:

Expansion into Process Industries: Traditionally, Opcenter APS has excelled in discrete manufacturing. However, in recent years, we’ve observed growing demand in process industries—particularly in food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals. These sectors require specialized capabilities for managing cleaning operations, raw material management, product changeovers, and expiration date management. Opcenter APS has evolved to address these needs effectively, making it increasingly valuable for process-focused operations.

Complex Regulatory Compliance: Manufacturing facilities, especially in regulated industries, must manage stringent requirements around traceability, batch management, and quality control. Opcenter APS’s ability to schedule around these constraints while optimizing efficiency is becoming a competitive advantage.

Global Supply Chain Integration: Manufacturers are increasingly managing multi-site, multi-country operations. The need for standardized planning processes—while respecting local variations—is paramount. Our ability to deploy Core Models globally addresses this trend directly.

Operational Efficiency & Sustainability: As manufacturers face pressure to reduce costs and environmental impact, they’re looking for planning solutions that can optimize not just speed but also resource utilization, energy consumption, and waste reduction.

Opcenter APS addresses all these trends through its flexibility, advanced algorithms, and ability to integrate across diverse operational environments and industries.

5. What advice would you give to manufacturers considering implementation of advanced planning and scheduling solutions?

Thomas: I would recommend three key principles:

2. Remove Non-Value-Added Operations to Increase Planner Capabilities
Many organizations waste planner time on manual data consolidation, spreadsheet updates, and routine administrative tasks. Implement APS in a way that automates these non-value-added activities, freeing your planning team to focus on strategic decisions, scenario analysis, and continuous process improvement.

3. Share Information and Experience Across Your Organization
Success with APS isn’t confined to a single facility or department. Create mechanisms for sharing best practices, lessons learned, and optimization strategies across your plants and business units. This cross-functional, cross-site learning accelerates maturity and maximizes ROI.

Final Thoughts:
Don’t hesitate to work with an experienced Siemens Opcenter APS partner who understands both your industry and your global ambitions. The right partner can make all the difference in delivering a solution that works for your unique operational needs and supports your long-term growth objectives.

About ATS Global

ATS Global is a worldwide reseller and integrator of Siemens Opcenter APS with established teams across the USA, France, UK, the Netherlands, and beyond. With deep expertise in both discrete and process industries, ATS specializes in delivering both localized and globally scalable Opcenter APS implementations.

For more information:

• Website: https://www.ats-global.com/fr/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/ats-global-france/?originalSubdomain=fr
• Contact: Thomas Nouge-Berde | thomas.nouge-berde@ats-global.com
• What’s new in Opcenter APS 2510

Are you a Siemens Opcenter APS partner interested in being featured as our Partner of the Month? Reach out to us and tell us your story!