FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

Aurora is an advanced scheduling solution that optimizes project management by streamlining operations, reducing turnaround times, and tackling complex challenges. It uses sophisticated knowledge, user rules, and constraints to improve scheduling compared to systems using simple, often suboptimal rules.

Aurora offers several advantages:

• Shorter Schedules: Aurora can deliver schedules that are 20-30% shorter.
• User-Friendly Interface: Quick scheduling input, visualization, and editing of resource allocations and timelines. It also automatically highlights scheduling conflicts.
• Strategic Benefits: Optimizes resource usage, supports realistic project modeling, and maximizes project throughput while minimizing costs.
• Advanced Modeling: Aurora supplies all of the “standard” modeling features but also supplies additional functionality to allow the user to quickly and easily model things that may be difficult or impossible to capture with other scheduling software.
• Domain-Tailored Optimization: Aurora’s algorithms have been fine-tuned for sub-assembly and final-assembly scheduling

Aurora encodes and applies sophisticated scheduling knowledge and user-supplied, decision-making rules to solve complex problems more effectively than conventional approaches.

No, it’s an advanced scheduling solution that enhances scheduling efficiency, optimizes resource allocation, and adapts to specific project needs. It’s designed to be more than just a basic automation tool.

Aurora integrates the expertise and decision-making capabilities learned from seasoned human schedulers who have worked on complex scheduling challenges.

Key features include:

• Modeling Accuracy
• Execution and Iteration Support
• Analytics
• Visualization
• Data Management
• Responsiveness to Change
• Domain-Tailored Optimization

Aurora supplies standard modeling features like precedence constraints and resource requirements, but it also provides additional functionality to model complex scenarios quickly and easily that may be difficult or impossible to capture with other scheduling software.

Aurora excels in operational scheduling by planning, executing tasks in progress, and iterating using past data. It effectively supports critical updates and data coherence across stages.

Aurora provides a variety of analytic features intended to help Industrial Engineers (IEs) better understand their model and schedule.

Aurora provides a variety of displays designed to help IEs quickly and easily interact with and analyze their model and schedule.

Aurora provides customized integrations with key systems, as well as more flexible integrations and data management tools that can be used more generally. They specifically mention CMAD integration.

A dedicated team of Aurora developers and implementors have years of experience assisting, as needed, to emergent project requirements.

Aurora’s graphical user interface enables users to enter domain-specific scheduling knowledge and requirements quickly and easily.

Customers include:

• NASA
• United Space Alliance
• Air Force
• TenA Company
• Camcar Textron
• General Dynamics Electric Boat (GDEB)
• Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI)
• Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
• Bombardier Learjet
• US Navy

Aurora provides customized integrations with key systems and flexible data management tools.

Yes, Aurora offers dedicated personnel who have customized it for years, some even decades.

You can contact us through the website to ask specific questions.

You can request a free demo by filling out the contact form on the Aurora Scheduling website.

Aurora automatically schedules labor based on required skills as well as taking into consideration preferred skills, ensuring that the most appropriate person(s) are assigned to each task.

Aurora automatically schedules while taking into consideration any labor rules provided including ergonomic constraints to prevent injuries.

Aurora takes into consideration the changes and determines the optimum path forward that will minimize the effects to milestones and project deadlines. This is performed in seconds, so the results are available for a quick review, and if the effects are too great, then various scenarios can be run to determine the best path forward, such as working limited overtime.

Aurora has the ability to integrate with a client’s existing repository of the various baseline data, including but not limited to resources, business rules, and dependencies spanning across the organization.

Yes, it is easy to build out many scenarios and quickly see the differences between varying modeled scenarios, allowing one to further understand and optimize the model based on one’s specific variable factors (time, cost, resources, deadlines, etc.).

Yes, Aurora provides the ability to assess changes to baseline data, assumptions, resources, and rules without modifying the live environment.

Yes, information about available resources, such as labor, equipment, instructors, and rooms/physical space is easy to view and modify.  Each resource has an associated calendar, which can be changed for any resource at any time, and Aurora will update the schedule appropriately.

Yes, Aurora includes a complete conflict detection mechanism that identifies the source of the conflict; this may include resource allocation conflicts such as a task requiring more resources than are ever available.

Aurora provides forecasting and simulation to predict future resource demands and simulate various planning scenarios.

Aurora provides comprehensive capacity planning optimization to balance resource supply with projected demand over any time frame, from hourly to extended periods over years.

Aurora implements automated intelligent optimal resource allocation based on predefined criteria and real-time data.

Aurora provides the ability to produce visualizations/dashboards of the data, and provides for significant customization of the visualizations.

Aurora has the ability to import data from other tools and applications using both industry standard formats and client interface specifications.

Aurora provides data outputs in configurable formats to integrate with other client systems and various industry standard formats.