Preactor International, the world’s leading specialist planning and scheduling Software Company, announced record attendance levels at its annual UK user group held at Coventry in November 2008. More than 100 attendees comprising users, potential users, exhibitors, sponsors, Preactor Partners and press took part in what was described as a “very upbeat and positive” series of presentations and demonstrations of how manufacturers can make significant benefits from improvements in production planning and scheduling.

Part of the success was attributed to the introduction of 4 seminar streams that allowed for a wide range of subjects to be covered allowing users to get the maximum benefit from just one day. Particular areas of interest included the growing need of manufacturers to link detailed scheduling to medium and long term planning, combining the benefits of Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) with Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), and distributed scheduling over multi-plant environments.

Mike Novels, Preactor’s CEO comments on the success of the day.  “Against a less than positive economic and business background, the overwhelming attitude of those in attendance was a determination not to just survive but to go on and become more successful during this time. Existing users were keen to discover further ways of building on the benefits they were already enjoying while potential users were exploring ways of making a proven area of technology work for them. APS remains one of the most cost effective ways that a manufacturer can reduce costs, increase efficiency and since Preactor is an enabling technology designed from the outset to work with existing IT investments, it can help those investments, especially ERP systems, deliver their true potential.”