Manufacturing SystemsERP Platform

DELMIA Ortems + private AI

AI for DELMIA Ortems: Explaining Plans and Reconciling with the ERP

Short answer

AI for DELMIA Ortems adds a private assistant beside the planning and scheduling tool, so planners can ask why an order is late, which resource or material drove it, and how the plan compares with ERP records. It reads through governed, read-only connectors and does not replace the scheduling engine or release process.

ERP: DELMIA Ortems
Industries: Manufacturing, Aerospace, Food and Beverage, Process Manufacturing
Written for: Production Planner

Discuss your DELMIA Ortems environment See use cases

DELMIA Ortems is Dassault Systemes' planning and scheduling product for finite-capacity scheduling in discrete and process plants. It sits between the ERP and the shop floor, taking orders, routings, stock and calendars from the ERP and producing a sequenced plan that respects capacity, materials and other constraints. Some sites use it alongside other DELMIA or 3DEXPERIENCE components, others run it as a standalone planning layer.

As with any APS, the difficulty lies in explaining and trusting the result. Planners must justify a date to a customer, explain a change to a plant manager, and notice when the plan and the ERP disagree. Doing this means reading Ortems resource definitions, constraint settings and the ERP data feeding it, often across several screens and exports.

Ortems provides its own visualization and reporting, which many plants use effectively. A private AI layer is worth considering when questions cross systems, when documentation of the model is thin, and when order and customer data cannot go to a public AI service, which is common in aerospace and defense supply chains.

The sections below describe how AI connects to an Ortems estate, what it does well, and where the product already suffices. The assistant explains and proposes; the planner remains the decision-maker and Ortems remains the scheduler.

What usually gets in the way

The problems we hear most from production planner teams running DELMIA Ortems.

Explaining plan changes

After each recalculation, planners must tell sales and production what moved and why, usually by assembling evidence from several views.

ERP and plan divergence

Order changes in the ERP between synchronizations leave the plan out of step, and spotting every difference by hand is slow.

Thin model documentation

Resource groups, constraints and rules were configured during the project, and the reasoning is rarely written down.

Material and capacity interplay

A delay may come from a late component, a limited resource or both. Separating them takes cross-checking schedule and purchasing data.

Restricted data

Aerospace and defense customers often restrict where order and program data may be processed.

Where AI earns its place in DELMIA Ortems

Each use case names the ERP objects it reads or writes, so your ERP team can judge the integration effort before anyone commits budget.

Late order root cause

For each late order, state in plain language whether capacity, material, calendar or priority drove the delay, with supporting figures.

Touches: Orders, Operations, Resources, Calendars, ERP stock and purchase orders

Outcome: Gives customer-facing teams a clear reason and a more reliable date.

Plan to ERP reconciliation

Compare ERP production orders with those loaded in the planning tool and list differences in quantity, dates or routing.

Touches: ERP production orders, routings, planning orders, interface tables

Outcome: Finds interface problems earlier and keeps plan and ERP aligned.

Recalculation change summary

After a recalculation, summarize the largest changes in start dates, sequence and resource load against the prior plan.

Touches: Plan versions, Operations, Resources

Outcome: Replaces manual comparison before the daily planning meeting with a reviewable summary.

Model documentation

Read resource, constraint and rule definitions and produce a searchable description of how the plant is modeled.

Touches: Resource definitions, constraints, calendars, rules

Outcome: Reduces dependency on a single expert and supports reviews and upgrades.

Capacity scenario summaries

Describe how added shifts, outages or priority changes alter late orders and loads across plan copies.

Touches: Calendars, Resources, plan scenarios

Outcome: Supports faster, better-evidenced capacity decisions.

Shortage-driven prioritization

List planned orders blocked by missing materials with linked purchase orders and promise dates.

Touches: BoM, stock, purchase orders, planned operations

Outcome: Aligns buyers with the items that gate the plan.

Floor Q&A

Supervisors ask what is next on a resource and what it depends on, answered from the plan and ERP status.

Touches: Dispatch lists, work centers, ERP order status

Outcome: Reduces routine interruptions to planners.

Reference architecture

The assistant reads plan data and ERP data through governed, read-only connectors. It explains and drafts; DELMIA Ortems does the scheduling and releases remain a planner action.

1
Ortems and ERP connectors
Reads planning data through Ortems database or export interfaces and ERP data through APIs or SQL views using scoped read-only accounts.
2
Semantic layer
Maps orders, operations, resources and constraints, including site-specific attributes, to planner terminology.
3
Model serving
Open-weight models served with vLLM or Ollama on customer hardware or a private cloud.
4
Retrieval and agents
Retrieval over live data and model documentation; proposals are drafts for planners to apply.
5
Governance and audit
Per-user logging of questions, queries and answers, held inside your environment.

Integration notes for your ERP team

Ortems exchanges orders, items and stock with the ERP through interface tables, files or middleware; use the same staging data as the source for the assistant.
Use read-only database roles for plan data; the assistant must not be able to recalculate or release plans.
If Ortems is part of a wider DELMIA or 3DEXPERIENCE deployment, confirm which data actually lives in Ortems and which in other components.
Index calendars and resource groupings, since many questions concern capacity assumptions.
ERP reads use documented APIs or read replicas, keeping role rules in force.
Where an MES or shop-floor system provides confirmations, read them to compare plan with actuals.
Test against your Ortems release and re-test at upgrade.

Deployment options

Air-gapped on-prem

Aerospace and defense suppliers with strict data rules.

All components run on site with no outbound path.

Private or sovereign cloud

Sites with planning and ERP workloads in their own cloud tenant.

Deployed in the same region and network boundary as the source systems.

Hybrid

Groups with several plants and different ERPs.

Central governance, local connectors, data stays in place.

Compliance and data control

How the architecture supports your obligations. Certification and accountability stay with your organisation; the design keeps the evidence straightforward.

ITAR / EAR data handling

Keeping model and data in infrastructure you control lets you apply your own access rules to controlled program data.

AS9100 planning records

Logged and reproducible explanations support control of planning information in audits.

Customer flow-down and NDA terms

Order and program data is not sent to public AI services.

GDPR and regional privacy

Personal data stays within infrastructure and region you control.

Where Netray fits

ERPray

Grounded questions and dashboards over ERP orders, stock and purchasing alongside plan snapshots.

DataRay

Suited when plan exports, model documents and ERP data must be queried together on-prem.

Custom build

Recalculation summaries and reconciliation agents depend on your model and are usually bespoke.

How an engagement runs

Phase 1 . 2-4 weeks

Discovery

-Inventory of Ortems release, interfaces and data stores
-Prioritized planner questions
-Security review
-Deployment recommendation

Phase 2 . 6-8 weeks

Pilot

-Read-only connectors on non-production data
-Late-order and reconciliation use cases live
-Accuracy review with planners
-Logging validated

Phase 3 . 4-6 weeks

Production

-Production cutover with scoped accounts
-Runbook for new questions
-Planner training
-Audit review process

Phase 4 . Ongoing

Scale

-More plants and ERPs
-Draft-action workflows
-Model refresh
-Quarterly accuracy review

Questions to ask any vendor, including us

A short list that separates real DELMIA Ortems AI work from a chatbot demo.

Does the assistant ever recalculate or release a plan?
Which Ortems interfaces and data stores does it read?
How are our constraints and calendars represented in answers?
Where does the model run and what leaves our network?
How is accuracy checked against planner investigations?
How does it reconcile with our ERP, and with what accounts?
What is the upgrade plan for Ortems and the ERP?
What do we keep if we end the engagement?

Frequently asked questions

Does AI replace DELMIA Ortems?

No. Ortems remains the planning and scheduling engine. The AI layer explains results, reconciles plan and ERP data, and drafts proposals. Planners still decide, recalculate and release plans through the normal process.

Do we need AI if Ortems already reports well?

Perhaps not. Built-in views cover many needs. The AI layer helps with explanatory and cross-system questions, such as why an order is late given ERP stock, and with documenting the model.

Can it work with other DELMIA products?

Possibly, depending on which components hold the data and what interfaces they expose. Discovery maps the actual landscape first and confirms what can be read safely.

How does it connect to the ERP?

Through documented APIs, SQL views or a read replica with a scoped read-only account, so the ERP's roles still apply.

Is our data protected for defense work?

Model and data run on infrastructure you control, so program data is not sent to a public AI service. Your own compliance obligations remain yours, and the design helps you meet them.

Can it suggest schedule changes?

It can draft proposals, such as moving a priority, for a planner to evaluate. Applying a change and releasing a plan stay with the planner in Ortems.

How long does a pilot take?

Typically two to four weeks of discovery and six to eight weeks of pilot, longer with several plants or complex interfaces.

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