Production schedule always late? Plan it around your real capacity
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When orders are worked in the order they arrived, a few long jobs block the bays and the people everyone else is waiting for, and several orders ship late even though the capacity was there. In one example, a workshop building 34 custom machines ships 10 of them late that way. A schedule built around its real bays, workers and parts dates ships only 3 late.
What finite-capacity scheduling is
A finite-capacity schedule decides what gets done when, knowing that each bay, machine and person can only do one thing at a time. It respects the order tasks must happen in, who is qualified for each task, and when parts arrive, and then looks for the plan with the fewest late orders.
Three ways to schedule production
| How it works | Good for | Where it falls short | |
|---|---|---|---|
| First come, first served (or a spreadsheet) | Orders are started as they arrive; the planner adjusts by hand | Few orders, few constraints | Long jobs block short ones; people and parts conflicts show up too late |
| An ERP or MRP priority list | The system sorts work by due date or priority | Keeping track of orders and materials | A priority list isn't a plan: it doesn't check that the bay or the right person is free |
| An optimizer fitted to your shop | A model of your bays, people, skills and task order, solved for the fewest late orders | Custom or engineered-to-order work, scarce skills | Needs your task and resource data the first time |
Example: late orders cut from 10 to 3
34 custom machines, 746 tasks, 8 assembly bays and 26 workers with one or two trades each. Every machine is a network of tasks that wait on each other and on parts deliveries. In the order received: 10 late orders, 31 working days of total delay, last delivery on day 75. With the scheduler: 3 late, 4 days of delay, last delivery on day 70, with the same people and bays. The output is a delivery plan per order and a daily job card for every worker. See the full case →
What I need from you
Your orders and their due dates, the tasks each one needs and in what order, your bays or machines, your people and what each can do, and when parts arrive. A spreadsheet is enough to start.
How to start
Email me at cdesivo92@gmail.com with a few lines about your shop, or hire me on Freelancer.com if you prefer the platform's contracts and payment protection. I build the scheduler as a tool your planner runs every week.