Tribal Knowledge in Scheduling

A recent survey by Unique Scheduling Solutions indicated that “extensive training and experience” is needed to prepare a  person for scheduling and/or production planning. And sometimes, “extensive” means months or years! This is because the inside scoop, or “tribal knowledge” … Continued

Do You Really Need to Save Seconds in Scheduling? YES!

Want to know how to translate a second into dollars? It all comes down to calculating your scheduling down to the second. Many applications don’t even use minutes to compute schedules. They use time “buckets” of five- or 15-minute intervals–or … Continued

The Evolution of Scheduling

If you’ve ever watched Jimmy Fallon do any of his Evolution of Dance bits, you’ll notice a couple things: We Americans started out simple, moving our bodies out of necessity with a basic step-touch, then curiously to more complex moves … Continued

The Pillars of Success (and Making the Case for Having an ATP Calculator Handy)

  If the old proverb “Necessity is the mother of invention,” then surely the need to provide accurate promise dates is the mother of finite capacity scheduling. It’s absolutely true. Let’s start with the basics: Any good business analyst will … Continued

The ABCs of Scheduling: A Return to the Basics:

Previously, in this BLOG, we have discussed the subtleties of various scheduling applications. A good app must accommodate many capabilities—some obvious, some not-so-obvious. That said, let’s review the basic capabilities that should be at the heart of any scheduling app. These … Continued

Flexible and Accommodating: Can Your Scheduler Do That?

It’s all very simple when you explain your manufacturing process to your mother/neighbor/in-laws, right? And it is–normally. You manufacture widgets. Normally, a widget run produces two dozen widgets. The five-step process goes something like this: Set-up the widget-making machines Perform … Continued

Decision Support Versus Decision-Making: A Trap for Schedulers

We all love automation. How can we not? Our coffee makers brew our morning joe at the exact temperature we prefer each morning, we have a customized news feed in the palm of our hands to bring us only the … Continued

You Can’t Steer the Ship by Looking at Its Wake: When ERP Is Not Enough

Don’t buy an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system expecting it to be a complete management decision-support tool. If producing something is the essence of your business, then you must ‘produce’ in the most efficient way possible.  Right?  Working with information … Continued

Challenges Accepted: What Are Yours?

Here are 10 real world scenarios I’ve encountered recently that require some serious know-how in order to set up a scheduling application. (Of course, the application itself must have the descriptive and solution capabilities to handle the complex scenarios.) Perhaps … Continued