Keep engineer-to-order projects on schedule — even when everything changes
From turnkey production lines to precision instruments, Convect models your deep BOMs and project milestones, and its agents replan the shop the moment an engineering change, late part or rush service order lands.
The challenge
What makes industrial equipment planning hard
Plans drift away from project milestones
Orders ship as projects, but the shop schedule isn’t tied to milestones — so components finish while final assembly waits.
Deep BOMs, constant engineering changes
Multi-level BOMs change mid-project. After every MRP run, planners spend days manually checking what actually changed.
Long-lead materials surprise you
Critical parts take months to source, and shortages often surface only when the job is about to start.
Aftermarket competes with new builds
Spare parts and service demand is lumpy and fights new equipment for the same capacity.
Agents at work
What your planning agents handle in industrial equipment
Real situations your planners deal with every week — picked up, analyzed and turned into an explained recommendation without anyone having to notice them first.
An engineering change hits a sub-assembly
Disruption Response Agent
Traces every affected work order through the BOM, replans only those, and shows the impact on each project milestone.
“Can we ship unit 14 two months early?”
Root-Cause Agent
Checks the contract, capacity and engineering readiness along the ontology and answers with a checkable chain of reasoning — not a guess.
A long-lead casting slips three weeks
Coordination Agent
Flags the projects at risk, proposes resequencing or expediting options, and loops in procurement with the numbers.
Industry ontology
An ontology built for industrial equipment
On top of the core model of products, lines, materials and orders, Convect adds the entities and constraints specific to industrial equipment — so agents understand your business from day one.
What this means for you
Project WBS + material network — once these relationships are in the model, the impact of any change (a rush order, a shortage, a breakdown) is traced automatically and handed to the optimizer as constraints.
Project WBS
Work breakdown structure as planning nodes, linked to shop orders
Kitting network
Multi-level supplier → warehouse → line checks for major assemblies
Milestone constraints
Delivery dates scheduled backward into latest start dates for every node
Aftermarket capacity pool
Shared capacity with service parts, with priorities and reserved share
The decisions we optimize
From project milestones to the shop floor: five decisions
From long-range planning to the shop floor, each layer’s output becomes the next layer’s constraint.
Component requirements
Decision
Which major components each project needs, when they must be ready, make or buy
Output
Component need dates scheduled back from milestones
Routing allocation
Decision
Which plant and routing each component takes, and which operations are subcontracted
Output
Plant assignments and routings
Engineering readiness
Decision
When drawings, process plans, tooling and NC programs will be done
Output
A schedule of engineering prerequisites before release
Plant master schedule
Decision
Which components each plant starts each week; how to balance load; overtime or subcontract
Output
A kitted, executable weekly plan per plant
Daily shop schedule
Decision
Operation sequence, machine and crew assignment; replanning for rush orders and breakdowns
Output
Machine-level daily schedule and dispatch list
Upstream decisions constrain downstream ones. When execution drifts, agents trace back up the chain and assess the impact automatically.
Product preview · Industrial equipment
Plant master schedule: load and project milestones on one screen
Capabilities
Planning capabilities built for industrial equipment
Project-driven master schedule
Production planned backward from project milestones; milestones and shop orders stay linked
Multi-level BOM kitting
Shortage risk traced down every BOM level, with early warnings on long-lead items
Capacity load visibility
Bottleneck operations and resource conflicts surfaced; overtime and subcontracting simulated
Aftermarket + new-build scheduling
Shared capacity allocated by priority and reserved share
| Production type | Key constraints | Planning granularity | BOM complexity | Rush-order frequency | Ontology highlights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engineer-to-order / discrete | Project milestones, assembly kitting | Week / day | Deep, multi-level | Low (but high impact) | Project WBS + material network |
See also: Production planning & scheduling · How the platform works
Customer results
Results from the industry
Industrial equipment manufacturer
Production scheduled backward from project milestones, with multi-level BOM kitting and capacity load analysis connected in one model.
80%
Less time building plans
65% → 85%
Kit-complete rate
+20%
On-time project delivery
Geely Holding Group
A multi-tier automotive parts network connecting suppliers, parts warehouses and vehicle plants, optimized end to end.
Multi-tier
Parts network model
Lower
Transport cost
Standards
Configured for industrial equipment requirements
During implementation, we configure the model around the quality systems and standards you operate under:
ISO 9001
Quality management
AS9100
Aerospace quality (where applicable)
PMBOK / PRINCE2
Project management
Put planning agents to work in industrial equipment
Get the Industrial Equipment Planning Playbook, or talk to a specialist who knows industrial equipment planning.