When you work closely with planning teams, you start to see the same patterns show up again and again. A scenario takes longer than it should to load. A small production change triggers a larger ripple than anyone expected. A storage step behaves differently from what the plant can actually support. None of these issues are dramatic on their own, but they quietly slow teams down and force extra work into the day.
That is what makes the V12.3.0 update worth paying attention to. This release focuses on the areas where planners and schedulers feel the most friction. It brings structure to tank and bulk storage for process manufacturers using APS. It gives teams a faster way to correct only the jobs that actually changed. And it makes the client lighter, so people can move through scenarios more quickly. These changes don’t just help one scheduling style; they raise the ceiling for different types of production planning approaches that PlanetTogether supports across process and discrete environments.
This blog walks through the three features that stand out most and why they matter.
Let me walk through what is new.
This feature will feel most relevant if your world involves tanks, silos, or any form of liquid or bulk storage. If that is not part of your operation, you can skim this section because the next two apply to everyone.
For process manufacturers, this change is significant. The previous method, which treated tanks as resources, often created blocking behavior that did not reflect how storage actually works. It led to conflicts that required overrides or after-the-fact adjustments. Even when the team worked around it, the model never fully matched the real plant.
Storage Areas for finite-capacity scheduling change this completely. They behave like true storage environments. You can set maximum and minimum levels for each item. You can define how many flows can occur at once, whether inbound, outbound, or both. You can prevent material from moving in ways that would not be physically possible in your facility. Cleanout timing is aligned to where it should occur in the process rather than being handled by workaround logic.
Here is the part that usually clicks with people. Picture a material falling toward a minimum threshold. Before V12.3.0, the system might not have reacted until it was too late. Now that the threshold is enforced. If the quantity drops below the minimum, the system can dispose of the remainder. This one shift creates clearer expectations for anyone responsible for quality, production timing, or inventory costs.
When your model mirrors real storage behavior, the schedule becomes easier to trust. It stops asking planners to guess and starts reflecting what is actually possible.
This improvement helps every type of manufacturer.
You know how often a small change forces a large recalculation. A date moves, an operation shifts, or a supplier is delayed. Instead of adjusting a few jobs, the entire schedule resets, which creates churn across the plant.
V12.3.0 introduces something far more practical. You can choose the jobs you want to optimize and everything else stays locked. If those jobs depend on upstream material, you can include their suppliers. If you want to optimize all work on a specific resource, that is an option too.
Think of it like tuning a single section of a machine instead of shutting down the entire line. The rest of the schedule keeps operating. Only the part that needs attention changes.
This kind of control pays off quickly. Less schedule churn. Fewer meetings where planners have to explain why unrelated jobs moved. Faster recovery when something shifts. It gives planners the ability to respond without unsettling work that was already stable.
This is where the measurable performance improvements shine. The v12.3.0 client feels noticeably quicker because the changes underneath it are substantial.
Here is what testing shows.
RAM usage drops by 85 percent when one scenario is loaded
Login times drop by 60 percent
Scenario file sizes shrink by 70 percent on the server
Undo data no longer stays in memory, which frees up space for active work. If a scenario desynchronizes, the client reloads it instead of forcing planners to restart. These are small details in isolation, but over the course of a day they add up. Planners move faster. What-if copies become easier to handle. The waiting time that usually gets ignored starts to disappear.
A slow system sets the tempo for the whole plant. When the system gets faster, the team gets faster. And when schedule updates run more quickly, the plan stays aligned with what is happening on the floor instead of lagging behind it.
Scheduling works best when the system stays aligned with real production conditions instead of fighting them. v12.3.0 moves in that direction from several angles.
Process manufacturers get a more realistic and reliable storage model. Planners get optimization tools that correct only the areas that changed. And the client performs fast enough to support decisions instead of delaying them.
The result is a plan that feels steadier. There is less noise, less backtracking, and fewer moments where people adjust their work to compensate for slow tools. When the system stays out of the way, the team can stay focused on the work that matters.
If you want a walkthrough of the new features or want to see how this update performs in your environment, a guided session or demo is worth scheduling. You will see the difference quickly.
This release is not a minor upgrade. It is a practical improvement to the parts of scheduling that usually stay overlooked. If you have been waiting for something that makes daily planning feel smoother, v12.3.0 is worth a closer look. If you want to see everything included in v12.3.0, the full list of enhancements and technical notes is available in the release documentation.
PlanetTogether APS v12.3.0 makes tank and bulk storage behave the way your plant actually runs—real storage areas, job-specific optimization, and a faster, lighter client that keeps up with real-time decisions.
If your world revolves around tanks, silos, or other bulk storage, the next step is seeing it in action. In our brewery case study, the team used PlanetTogether APS to coordinate tank usage, cut setup time, and recover capacity without adding new equipment.