Manufacturing schedules often look perfectly reasonable until they meet the factory.
The ERP says the work orders are due.
MRP calculates what materials and resources should be required.
Then reality intervenes.
Two jobs need the same machine.
A critical operator is unavailable.
Material arrives late.
A changeover takes longer than expected.
A rush order appears.
And suddenly the production plan that worked beautifully in a spreadsheet is impossible.
DELMIA Ortems is Dassault Systèmes’ Advanced Planning and Scheduling—or APS—software for dealing with those constraints.
The platform combines finite-capacity planning, detailed production scheduling, material synchronization, what-if analysis and resource optimization to help manufacturers create plans that reflect what their factories can actually accomplish.
Can You Try DELMIA Ortems for Free?
We could not verify a current public self-service free trial for DELMIA Ortems.
Dassault Systèmes currently directs prospective Ortems customers to contact its sales experts rather than offering an online trial account or downloadable evaluation license through the main product pages.
DELMIA Ortems Evaluation Access
Evaluation type: Sales-led demonstration / proof of concept
Self-service free trial: Not currently advertised
Public evaluation download: Not currently advertised
Current documentation: Yes
Best suited for: Manufacturers with significant production-planning, capacity and scheduling complexity
Dassault publishes current DELMIA Ortems 2026 installation and reference guides, including documentation for Manufacturing Planner and Production Scheduler as well as ERP integration.
For Engineering Software Trials, we would classify the public evaluation access as:
Limited / sales-led.
But APS software is also particularly suitable for a proof of concept.
You can give the vendor a real production-planning problem and see whether the resulting schedule is better than the one your planners already create.
What Is DELMIA Ortems?
DELMIA Ortems is an Advanced Planning and Scheduling system designed to optimize manufacturing across long-, mid- and short-term planning horizons.
Dassault describes Ortems as combining demand, supply and production information while creating a virtual representation of machines, materials, workforce and processes.
Its finite-capacity optimization considers actual manufacturing constraints rather than assuming unlimited resources.
Ortems can use information from:
- ERP
- MES
- PLM
- Work orders
- Inventory
- Material availability
- Production resources
- Machines
- Labor
- Manufacturing constraints
The purpose is not merely to make a prettier production schedule.
It is to produce a schedule that has a better chance of surviving contact with the factory.
What Is Advanced Planning and Scheduling?
Advanced Planning and Scheduling software sits between broad enterprise planning and day-to-day manufacturing execution.
Traditional MRP can calculate:
What do we need to make?
What materials do we need?
When do we need them?
But conventional MRP often assumes effectively unlimited capacity.
That can produce a plan requiring three machines when the factory owns one.
APS adds another question:
Given the machines, people, tools, materials and time we actually have, what can we realistically produce—and in what sequence?
That is the problem DELMIA Ortems is designed to address.
The Three Main DELMIA Ortems Products
Dassault currently organizes Ortems around three principal planning applications:
- DELMIA Ortems Manufacturing Planner
- DELMIA Ortems Production Scheduler
- DELMIA Ortems Synchronized Requirements Planner
Each addresses a different part of the planning problem.
DELMIA Ortems Manufacturing Planner
Manufacturing Planner focuses primarily on midterm and longer-range finite-capacity planning.
It compares work-order load with the real capacity of manufacturing resources and helps planners identify where future demand exceeds what the factory can produce.
Dassault says Manufacturing Planner can model product and resource constraints, analyze bottlenecks and run what-if scenarios involving internal and subcontracted capacity.
Typical questions include:
- Can we meet next month’s demand?
- Which work centers will be overloaded?
- Where do we need additional capacity?
- Should work be subcontracted?
- What happens if customer demand increases?
- Can we accept another large order?
- Which resources are likely to become bottlenecks?
This is strategic and tactical production planning rather than minute-by-minute dispatching.
We’ll cover Manufacturing Planner separately because its evaluation questions are quite different from those of a detailed production scheduler.
DELMIA Ortems Production Scheduler
Production Scheduler operates closer to day-to-day manufacturing.
It performs detailed short-term scheduling while considering finite capacity and constraints across resources such as:
- Machines
- Tools
- Operators
- Materials
- Manufacturing processes
Dassault says its optimization engine can improve production sequences and dispatching while reducing changeovers, inventory and work-in-process. (3ds.c
This is where planners answer questions such as:
- Which job should run first?
- Which machine should perform it?
- Which operator is available?
- How do we minimize changeovers?
- What happens if Machine 4 goes down?
- Where can we insert an urgent order?
- How should we reschedule after a disruption?
If your planners spend every morning manually rearranging schedules because yesterday’s plan no longer works, Production Scheduler is the Ortems application most directly aimed at that problem.
DELMIA Ortems Synchronized Requirements Planner
The third major component is Synchronized Requirements Planner.
This product addresses the relationship between production scheduling and material availability across multi-level bills of material.
It synchronizes purchase orders and work orders from raw material through semi-finished components to finished products and places inventory and material constraints into the planning process.
That matters because a production schedule can be perfectly optimized from a machine-capacity standpoint and still fail if the required component isn’t available.
Synchronized Requirements Planner is intended to connect those two realities:
Can we make it?
and
Do we have what we need to make it?
Manufacturing Planner vs. Production Scheduler
This distinction is probably the easiest way to understand Ortems.
Manufacturing Planner asks:
Do we have enough capacity?
It focuses more on:
- Medium-term planning
- Capacity
- Workload
- Bottlenecks
- Resource requirements
- What-if scenarios
- Outsourcing decisions
Production Scheduler asks:
Exactly how should we run the work?
It focuses more on:
- Short-term scheduling
- Job sequencing
- Machine assignments
- Operator availability
- Changeovers
- Dispatching
- Rescheduling
Many manufacturers need both.
But if you are evaluating Ortems, start with the problem that hurts most.
Why Finite Capacity Matters
One of the fundamental ideas behind Ortems is finite-capacity planning.
Imagine five work orders all require the same CNC machine.
An infinite-capacity planning system may effectively place all five against Tuesday because that is when they need to run.
The machine, unfortunately, cannot manufacture five jobs simultaneously.
Finite-capacity planning recognizes the physical constraint and creates a sequence based on actual available capacity.
The same concept can apply to:
- Machines
- Tools
- Fixtures
- Labor
- Skilled operators
- Inspection equipment
- Production cells
- Subcontractors
This sounds obvious.
In practice, many manufacturing organizations still reconcile these conflicts manually.
AI-Powered Scheduling
Dassault now explicitly describes DELMIA Ortems as using an AI-powered optimization engine.
The current Ortems platform combines optimization with machine learning, predictive analytics and AI-assisted decision support through DELMIA Scheduling Intelligence. Dassault says these capabilities can monitor KPIs, identify deviations between plans and actual production, detect root causes and anticipate disruptions.
This is an area where evaluation matters more than marketing terminology.
During a demonstration, don’t simply ask:
Does Ortems use AI?
Ask:
What decision did the AI make that our planner would otherwise have had to make manually?
Then determine whether that decision was actually better.
What-If Production Planning
What-if analysis is one of the most valuable potential APS capabilities.
Suppose your largest customer requests another 500 units.
Can you deliver them?
Rather than changing the real production schedule immediately, planners can create a scenario.
What happens if:
- Demand increases?
- A machine is unavailable?
- Overtime is added?
- Another shift is created?
- Work is subcontracted?
- Material arrives late?
- A new machine is purchased?
- A maintenance shutdown is moved?
Both Manufacturing Planner and Production Scheduler include what-if capabilities for investigating changes before committing them to the production plan.
That can turn APS from a scheduling tool into a decision-support system.
Bottleneck Identification
Factories often know they have a bottleneck.
They don’t always know which resource will become the next one.
Manufacturing Planner provides workload-analysis views intended to reveal constraints across primary and secondary resources.
That is important because solving one bottleneck can simply move the constraint elsewhere.
During an evaluation, ask Ortems to identify bottlenecks from your actual workload.
Then compare its answer with what your production planners already know.
If the software merely tells your planners what they already knew, the value may be limited.
If it exposes a constraint they hadn’t seen, that’s much more interesting.
Reduce Changeovers
Production scheduling is not only about fitting work into available hours.
The sequence can matter.
Suppose a manufacturing process requires extensive cleaning, tooling or setup whenever the product type changes.
Running:
A → B → A → B → A
may require far more setup time than:
A → A → A → B → B
Production Scheduler includes optimization criteria intended to reduce setup and changeover time while balancing other delivery and manufacturing constraints.
This is an excellent proof-of-concept test.
Give the vendor your real changeover rules.
Then compare the resulting sequence with the one your best scheduler creates manually.
Responding to Shop-Floor Disruptions
No production schedule survives unchanged forever.
Machines break.
Operators call in sick.
Materials arrive late.
Quality holds stop production.
Priorities change.
Production Scheduler is designed to reschedule work when those events occur rather than forcing planners to reconstruct the entire plan manually.
Dassault specifically promotes Ortems’ ability to respond to unexpected shop-floor events and changing demand.
So test it.
Don’t spend the entire demonstration looking at the initial schedule.
Break something.
Ortems and ERP
DELMIA Ortems is intended to extend ERP planning, not necessarily replace ERP.
Dassault says Ortems integrates with ERP systems, and current Ortems 2026 documentation includes a dedicated guide for using the Ortems adapter with SAP ERP.
In a typical environment, ERP may continue to own information such as:
- Customer demand
- Production orders
- Inventory
- Purchasing
- Product structures
- Financial information
Ortems then uses relevant data to create more realistic finite-capacity plans and schedules.
The exact ownership model should be defined during implementation.
Ortems and MES
Ortems can also connect with MES environments.
The conceptual distinction is straightforward:
Ortems decides what should happen and when.
MES records and manages what actually happens on the shop floor.
For Dassault customers, that MES layer may be DELMIA Apriso.
But Ortems is designed to integrate with ERP, MES and PLM environments rather than requiring every surrounding system to be another Dassault product.
That should still be verified with your specific systems.
“Integrates with MES” is not the same thing as:
We have already integrated this version with your MES using the data objects you require.
DELMIA Ortems vs. DELMIA Apriso
This distinction is essential.
DELMIA Ortems
Focuses on:
- Advanced planning
- Finite capacity
- Production scheduling
- Resource optimization
- Bottlenecks
- Material synchronization
- What-if planning
DELMIA Apriso
Focuses on:
- Manufacturing execution
- Shop-floor operations
- Work instructions
- Quality
- Traceability
- Materials
- Maintenance
- Labor
In very simplified terms:
Ortems plans the factory.
Apriso runs the factory.
The information can then move between planning and execution to keep schedules aligned with actual production.
Who Should Consider DELMIA Ortems?
Ortems may deserve evaluation when:
- Production planners rely heavily on spreadsheets
- ERP schedules consistently ignore real capacity
- Orders compete for the same machines
- Changeovers materially affect throughput
- Work-in-process is too high
- Planners spend large amounts of time rescheduling
- Delivery promises are difficult to trust
- Material availability frequently disrupts schedules
- Multiple products share constrained resources
- The factory operates many lines or work centers
- Production disruptions require constant replanning
Dassault says Ortems is intended for manufacturers with multiple production lines and work centers and is used by roles including production planners, schedulers, supply-chain managers and manufacturing leaders.
What Should You Test in a DELMIA Ortems Demo?
Because there is no public self-service trial we could verify, the quality of the vendor-led evaluation becomes especially important.
1. Give Them Your Current Schedule
Don’t begin with Dassault’s example factory.
Provide a representative set of:
- Work orders
- Routings
- Resources
- Shift calendars
- Machines
- Tools
- Operators
- Due dates
- Material constraints
- Setup rules
Then ask Ortems to schedule it.
2. Compare It With Your Planner
This may be the single best test.
Give the same production problem to:
Your experienced production planner
and
DELMIA Ortems
Compare:
- On-time delivery
- Changeovers
- Machine utilization
- WIP
- Overtime
- Lead time
- Schedule stability
The software doesn’t need to “beat” your planner at everything.
It needs to provide enough improvement or time savings to justify its cost and implementation effort.
3. Overload a Resource
Give several jobs the same machine.
Does Ortems recognize that all of the promises cannot be met?
What does it recommend?
4. Remove a Machine
Create a breakdown.
Then measure:
- How quickly the schedule is rebuilt
- Which jobs move
- Which customers become late
- Whether downstream operations remain synchronized
5. Delay Material
Take away a critical component.
See whether the schedule changes before production discovers the problem at the machine.
6. Add a Rush Order
Insert the order the sales department promised without asking manufacturing first.
See what Ortems says must move.
This is one of the situations where APS should be particularly useful because it can expose the cost of an apparently simple promise.
7. Test Changeover Optimization
Give the system real setup rules.
Then compare its sequence with your current schedule.
8. Run a What-If Scenario
Ask:
What happens if we add a second shift?
Or:
What happens if we buy another machine?
An APS system should help answer investment questions, not merely create tomorrow’s schedule.
9. Test Schedule Stability
Constantly changing the schedule can be almost as damaging as having a bad schedule.
Operators, supervisors, materials teams and suppliers need some stability.
So change one input and see whether Ortems intelligently preserves unaffected work—or unnecessarily rearranges everything.
DELMIA Ortems 2026 includes capabilities for defining scheduling fixed periods at the machine level, which can help preserve portions of a production sequence during rescheduling. (3dswym.3dexperience.3ds.com)
That’s exactly the kind of detail worth testing.
What Does DELMIA Ortems Cost?
Dassault Systèmes does not currently publish straightforward public Ortems pricing on its main product pages.
Current 2026 licensing documents show separate licensing structures for Production Scheduler and Manufacturing Planner, including planning environments and different user-license classes.
Actual cost can therefore depend on factors including:
- Products selected
- Planning environments
- Planner users
- Viewing users
- Integrations
- Implementation
- Data preparation
- Training
- Support
When requesting pricing, ask for the entire implementation estimate—not just software licenses.
APS software can require substantial work to clean and structure the manufacturing data required to produce a trustworthy schedule.
Data Quality May Be the Real Trial
This point deserves special attention.
Dassault says a successful Ortems implementation depends on having key metrics and data available from sources such as PLM, ERP and MES.
That means an APS evaluation can reveal something uncomfortable:
Your scheduling problem may partly be a data problem.
If routings are wrong, cycle times are fiction, setup times are missing, calendars are outdated and material availability is unreliable, even a sophisticated optimizer is working with bad assumptions.
During the proof of concept, pay attention to how much data correction is necessary before Ortems produces a useful schedule.
That work is part of the real implementation cost.
DELMIA Ortems Evaluation Verdict
Evaluation access: Limited / Sales-Led
DELMIA Ortems is a serious APS platform covering finite-capacity planning, detailed scheduling and synchronized material requirements.
The current portfolio includes:
- Manufacturing Planner
- Production Scheduler
- Synchronized Requirements Planner
Dassault continues to actively develop the product, with current DELMIA Ortems 2026 documentation and recent R2026 scheduling enhancements available publicly.
But we could not verify a public self-service Ortems trial.
The current buying path begins by contacting Dassault Systèmes.
For APS software, that should not mean accepting an hour-long demonstration of a perfectly balanced factory.
Give Dassault the schedule your planner hates.
Give them two orders fighting for the same machine.
Remove an operator.
Delay material.
Add the rush job sales promised yesterday.
Then ask Ortems to rebuild the schedule.
Don’t ask Dassault Systèmes to show you Ortems’ best schedule. Give them the scheduling mess your factory actually has and see what it does with it.