Malcolm Wheatley, senior contributing editor, Ribeirão, Portugal

No limits: Portuguese textile maker links MES, APS, readying plant-floor finite scheduling for growth

Look closely at textile finishing manufacturer Aquacolor and you’ll see what some regard as the future of plant-floor operations: an advanced planning & scheduling (APS) and a manufacturing execution system (MES) working in close harmony. It’s a transformation that took the company some years to achieve, but which now is yielding undoubted benefits.