Effective Scheduling in Manufacturing

Scheduling is the process of arranging, controlling and optimizing work and workloads in a production process or manufacturing process. Scheduling is used to allocate plant and machinery resources, plan human resources, plan production processes and purchase materials.

It is an important tool for manufacturing and engineering, where it can have a major impact on the productivity of a process. In manufacturing, the purpose of scheduling is to minimize the production time and costs, by telling a production facility when to make, with which staff, and on which equipment. Production scheduling aims to maximize the efficiency of the operation and reduce costs.

The benefits of production scheduling include:
1. Process change-over reduction
2. Inventory reduction, levelling
3. Reduced scheduling effort
4. Increased production efficiency
5. Labour load levelling
6. Accurate delivery date quotes
7. Real time information

In some situations, scheduling can involve random attributes, such as random processing times, random due dates, random weights, and stochastic machine breakdowns.

Documents Outline
1. Objectives in Scheduling
2. Loading
3. Sequencing
4. Monitoring
5. Advanced Planning and Scheduling Systems
6. Theory of Constraints
7. Employee Scheduling

Scheduling
1. Last stage of planning before production occurs
2. Specifies when labor, equipment, and facilities are needed to produce a product or provide a service