Critical Manufacturing/INESC Porto Partnership

Porto/Portugal - Critical Manufacturing, an enterprise which creates innovative software solutions for high-tech manufacturing industries, announced today that it signed an agreement with the R&D institution INESC Porto to deploy an Advanced Planning and Scheduling solution.

INESC Porto and Critical Manufacturing signed a joint development agreement to cooperate in the creation of an Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) solution, seamlessly integrated into cmNavigo Productivity Suite.

Critical Manufacturing’s cmNavigo Productivity Suite is a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) developed from the ground up on proven Microsoft technologies which provide extensive usability benefits and lower total cost of ownership. The system is completely scalable making it ideal from small R&D environments to large scale high volume production facilities. A full range of manufacturing capabilities facilitate increased control, visibility and productivity for manufacturers seeking higher profitability and a competitive edge.

INESC Porto’s Manufacturing Systems Engineering Unit (UESP) has been developing and deploying over the last years an innovative and highly efficient scheduling engine, which among other characteristics provides fast first solutions, timely efficient resolution of complex optimization problems, multi-criteria optimization and quantitative evaluation of the solutions provided.

"The planning and scheduling of production orders is widely recognized as a critical production activity, whose results allow manufacturing companies to excel their operational performance”, says José Manuel Mendonça, INESC Porto President. “However, the value delivered by an APS solution rises to unprecedented levels with the increase of real-time availability and reliability of input data. We’re confident that a full integration of our scheduling engine with a state-of-the-art MES like cmNavigo will create a unique advantage to high-tech manufacturers”, he adds.

“This cooperation will provide a quantum leap efficiency improvement to our customers”, states Augusto Vilarinho, Critical Manufacturing’s Business Development Manager. “We’ll deliver a highly effective Planning and Scheduling solution, with no need for expensive integration efforts, long deployment cycles, duplication of master data or high maintenance costs” he adds.

Additional information on cmNavigo is available at www.criticalmanufacturing.com/products

ABOUT INESC PORTO
INESC Porto - Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering of Porto - is a private non-profit association, recognized as a Public Interest Institution and an Associate Laboratory since 2002. It was created to act as an interface between the academic world, the world of industry and services and the public administration in Information Technologies, Telecommunications, Energy and Electronics (ITT&E). Its activities range from research and development to technology transfer, consulting and advanced training.

 More information about INESC Porto is available at http://www2.inescporto.pt

ABOUT CRITICAL MANUFACTURING S.A.
Critical Manufacturing is an enterprise founded from the established business of Critical Software and the inspiration and experience of a team of internationally renowned industry experts, that creates leading edge software solutions for advanced manufacturing industries. The company is part of Critical Group, a private group of companies founded in 1998 to provide solutions for mission and business critical information systems. Critical Manufacturing has its headquarters and main technical centre in Portugal and additional facilities in Germany, China and USA.
For more information, please visit www.criticalmanufacturing.com or contact us at contact@criticalmanufacturing.com.

24 September 2012