The Rhythm family of intelligent planning and scheduling solutions represent a fundamentally new approach to supply chain management. RhythmÆs advanced decision-support capabilities enable companies to make better informed, more timely planning, scheduling, and resource allocation decisions in order to improve efficiency, customer satisfaction, and return on assets.

Rhythm's Unique Approach to Planning

Using an innovative approach, i2 provides its customers with intelligent decision support tools to achieve significantly superior results in the following key business drivers:

• Return on Assets (ROA)
  
• Delivery Performance
  
• Profit Contribution, and
  
• Responsiveness (Order Lead Time)

Rhythm achieves the above business objectives through intelligent planning capabilities to increase throughput, reduce inventory, decrease cycle times, and improve customer delivery date performance. i2's Rhythm addresses many of the limitations inherent in traditional systems, and thus extends the capabilities of existing manufacturing solutions. As a result, Rhythm is often implemented in conjunction with, or as a complement to, existing MRP and ERP solutions. Rhythm's data structures, methodologies and application logic differentiate it from traditional planning solutions in the following ways:

Key Concepts...

Advanced Warning
Rhythm's memory-resident, object-oriented design allows for very rapid analysis and response to planning and scheduling issues. Rhythm identifies production and scheduling problems as circumstances change, proposes optimal solutions and allows for automatic and/or manual corrective action. i2's software also allows managers to perform real-time "what-if" analysis to simulate the impact of potential local actions on the total supply chain.

Concurrent Planning
In contrast to the traditional approach of sequential planning, concurrent planning views all the steps in the supply chain process simultaneously. To create a globally-optimal plan that meet the business objectives of the enterprise requires that all elements of the supply chain be planned concurrently. Because Rhythm presents an integrated model of the supply chain, from raw material procurement through work-in-process to customer delivery, it is able to provide solutions which optimize the efficiency of the supply chain as a whole rather than summing a series of locally-optimal or "locally-greedy" decisions.

Constraint-driven
Upon identification of a planning or scheduling change, Rhythm immediately propagates the effect of the change upstream and downstream, from the constraint (or constraints), throughout the supply chain model to derive a revised, optimal solution. For example, an unforeseen loss of production capacity would automatically signal for a reduction in raw material procurement as well as the potential rescheduling of customer delivery dates. Unlike the traditional planning approach which is iterative, Rhythm clearly identifies the cause-and-effect relationship as events occur within the supply chain.

Rhythm and Technology

Rhythm is a product that is unique in the industry as far as technology is concerned. The foundation of the Rhythm architecture is an object model that allows for the representation of any component of the supply chain, such as single or multi-site manufacturing, distribution, transportation, and it's all one model! No separate modules for different functions or problem domains.

This model is extensible, which means that when a particular industry or customer requires a feature that is not currently in the model, it can be added quickly and easily. And, it all runs in memory...if memory size becomes a problem, models can be split however you like, and they can work in conjunction with each other, whether across the room or across the globe.

What does this mean to you? It means blinding speed - planning problems are identified and resolved without needing to pass a ton of information between modules that would then turn around and recalculate from scratch in order to incorporate the changes. Even when you split a Rhythm model across machines, Rhythm uses a unique, patented 'Request/Promise' mechanism, for high speed, incremental calculations. It also means that you can try out various scenarios within the model and get results back before you forget why you wanted to try it that way in the first place.

Rhythm works directly with the major ERP systems on the market, including SAP, and SSA. In fact, no other planning and scheduling company can give you as many 'off the shelf' integration solutions. Look to our alliances section for more information on our integrated partners. As for Rhythm's connections with the rest of the world, we offer a number of solutions, including the Datalink product that allows point-and-click navigation into your existing and future databases systems, mapped directly back into the corresponding objects inside the Rhythm model. Datalink supports standard standard object interfaces including CORBA and OLE2.0.

Rhythm Functionality

The Rhythm product suite is a leading-edge software solution that is based upon i2's unique approach to planning and a technology base that supports flexibility and scalability within a complex supply chain network.

Rhythm provides planning and scheduling capabilities in the following areas of supply chain management:

• Forecast Management
  
• Distribution Planning
  
• Factory Planning
  
• Detailed Scheduling
  
• Multi-plant Planning
  
• Sourcing
  
• Allocation
  
• Inventory Planning
  
• Procurement & Outsourcing
  
• ATP and Automated Order Promising
  
• Transportation Planning
  
• Business optimization rules
  
  

Rhythm supports industry-focused solutions in:

• Aerospace & Defense
  
• Automotive
  
• Consumer Packaged Goods
  
• Industrial Products/Heavy Equipment
  
• High Tech/Electronics
  
• Metals
  
• Paper
  
• Pharmaceutical
  
• Textiles/Sewn Goods
  
  

Rhythm supports manufacturing processes in:

• Make-to-order
  
• Engineered-to-order
  
• Assemble-to-order
  
• Configure-to-order
  
• Make-to-stock
  
• Process
  
• Batch-Process
  
• Mixed-mode
  
• Repetitive
  

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