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
May The Force Be with You!
The question here is a good one: How do you make the impossible, possible? Recently, a product producer wanted the capability to “force” a production sequence onto an already heavily-loaded schedule. This request was motivated by the desire to satisfy … 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