PACCAR is a global leader in manufacturing premium light, medium and heavy-duty trucks under the Kenworth, Peterbilt and DAF brands. Its production operations span the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia, the Netherlands, Brazil and the UK. In 2023, PACCAR delivered a record 204,200 vehicles to customers in 100 countries worldwide, with annual revenue of $35 billion.
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Success Story
PACCAR
PACCAR Drives Advanced Production Scheduling Excellence Across Its Global Operations
Optimized Advanced Production Scheduling across seven countries
Easier, more cost-effective vehicle customization
Improved utilization of labor and assembly lines and with smoother, more balanced production
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The Company
The Business Challenge
PACCAR’s extensive product portfolio demands a robust production Advanced Production Scheduling system to precisely match its complex operations with shifting global demand. PACCAR must schedule the manufacture of a range of customized, engineer-to-order vehicles across its worldwide operations — while considering the complexity of various product attributes, process constraints, assembly flows and production rules.
The Solution
PACCAR relies on flexis, a part of Blue Yonder, to implement advanced planning and scheduling (APS) across its global manufacturing operations, spanning five countries and two continents. With modules for order slotting, order sequencing and detailed scheduling, flexis APS is designed to deliver the operational flexibility PACCAR requires in today’s volatile automotive marketplace. This solution enables PACCAR to replan production as quickly as conditions change on both the demand and supply sides.
“The long-term collaboration with the Blue Yonder flexis team, has been marked by continuous improvement and mutual success, with PACCAR consistently achieving its production goals thanks to the robust capabilities of the Blue Yonder flexis APS application.”
– Cathy Higgins, Business Analyst, Kenworth Truck Company
How PACCAR is modernizing its end-to-end, global logistics operations
Delivering Operational Flexibility — an Industry Imperative
Like every automotive and heavy truck manufacturer, PACCAR faces tough challenges. It must balance long lead times and frequent supply chain disruptions — like material shortages — with delivery speed and reliability. It also must achieve profitability despite uncertain demand, and an increasing need for vehicle personalization. The key to meeting these challenges is operational flexibility.
Yet automotive production is not built for flexibility and agility. In scheduling its customer orders, PACCAR faces practical challenges like complex order configurations, diverse plant requirements, multiple assembly line attributes and constraints, and complex production rules.
PACCAR needed a robust Advanced Production Scheduling solution that could transform its operations for increased flexibility, cost control and responsiveness to changing conditions. By ingesting real-time data, the solution would help smooth production by identifying and responding to disruptions on both the demand and supply sides. The solution would need to integrate seamlessly with PACCAR’s existing IT system for real-time data import and export.
Driven by Data, the Blue Yonder solution Steers Production Toward Market Needs
After a thorough review of various software solutions, PACCAR chose flexis — a part of Blue Yonder — to address its need for flexible production scheduling. flexis APS ingests real-time demand and supply data, then considers multiple order attributes and production constraints as it automatically creates an optimal manufacturing schedule.
As the Blue Yonder solution schedules, slots and sequences orders, it leverages advanced optimization engines to consider a wide range of data. It accounts for different product configurations, plant capabilities and production requirements. Even unusual scenarios, such as multi-color paint jobs that require additional time in certain areas, are easily managed. This solution also monitors truck production in real time to ensure adherence to constraints and optimize assembly workflows.
Today PACCAR can balance rapid, reliable customer delivery with cost-effective production that makes the most of labor, equipment and other resources. Production is smoother and more balanced, even in the face of demand volatility. Schedules can be easily updated and replanned as conditions change, and any issues or constraints are flagged and addressed in real time.
PACCAR’s collaboration with the Blue Yonder team has resulted in continuous improvement, and consistently achieving its production goals.