Chase away the dark cloud of scheduling conflicts

By Dr. Gaurav Srivastava and Ross Leahy

“Yes, I know I said I would be home for dinner with the kids tonight…”

“Look, you know I’m sorry, and I don’t want to be at my desk still; but it is what it is.”

“Ok, I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

Wally Scott, production manager at Acme Inc., hung up the phone and looked at the photo of his wife and three kids. He was beginning to think that it was on his desk so he would recognize them if he ever saw them again.

A line from “The Sopranos” came to mind.

“What ya gonna do?”

Management Alerts
Wally looked at his monitor to see how the scheduling calculations were coming along, and it still said “Processing.” It really should be saying “Re-processing” because it was the second time he had to run it.

All because the guys in the machine shop hadn’t completed their time and production entries before he started the process that reviewed and rescheduled work to take into account what had been achieved today. This meant the program would have had all sorts of convulsions because the work it thought had been completed seemingly wasn’t.

It would be rescheduling and firing off alerts and management would be getting emails and then phones would start ringing.

Shortly after that the sky would come crashing down.

So Wally got IT to kill the process and bring the system back up again and the machine supervisor got his data done. Off the process went again.

It could have been worse. Imagine trying to do this in a multi-shift plant where you couldn’t find a moment when everything was up-to-date so the scheduling software could perform its magic.

Still, its revised schedule would be locked in for tomorrow and what it told him to make, he would make. It was, at least, a great shield to sit behind when those pesky sales guys came in with “urgent orders” for “strategic customers!”

It serves them right, really, as their end-of-month reports are using most of the server power, so the scheduling was taking even longer than usual.

The monitor flickered and Wally looked at the warning messages. Something wasn’t right! The paint shop is running overtime tomorrow so how can they be overloaded? Simple really—the capacity profile didn’t get updated with that information. A little maintenance and he would have to run it again.

He wondered, not for the first time, “Is this process working for me, or am I working for it?”

That is a question many users of advanced scheduling systems seem to continually ask themselves.

Advanced Light Manufacturing Scheduling
Absolute Vision Technologies (AVT) is committed to finding a resolution to the problems inherent in traditional scheduling approaches. The company has been working with existing clients to determine a solution that provides a means of minimizing the fundamental weaknesses of the two key elements: the system and the people running it.

Systems are fantastic at processing limitless amounts of data in the blink of an eye, time and time again, with consistency and to 10 decimal points— but they don’t know what they don’t know.

People are easily swamped with data but can make decisions incredibly quickly when faced with situations previously not encountered. People are aware of extraneous factors or influences that can influence the available capacity. Experienced plant managers can work out the alternatives in the face of a machine breakdown and will be aware that the day after Super Bowl Sunday is not a good day to schedule overtime.

The Heart of Scheduling
The heart of scheduling is the mathematical exercise of calculating how long an activity is going to take and when to fit it into the timeline of the work center to which it is assigned.

This is where the fun begins with myriad factors influencing how long the activity will take.

The calculation may depend on:

• The throughput rate of a machine;
• The number of staff assigned;
• A fixed amount of time e.g., drying or fermenting
• A per unit or per batch variable.

Having decided on the basics, there must be rules to govern what happens when there is competition for a given block of time. What determines priority?

• The relative ranking of customers for whom the orders are destined?
• The relative profit margin of the competing orders?
• The need to dismantle and reassemble complex production lines?
• The item’s importance to subsequent orders i.e., a subassembly?

AVT’s Approach
AVT’s approach encapsulates the following principles.

• The scheduling tool must operate in real time without the need to run complex and fundamentally mysterious scheduling processes.
• The scheduling tool presents the output in a manner that is visually obvious.
• The scheduling tool must allow user intervention that minimizes the need for data entry.

The scheduling tool that has been developed by AVT provides:

• The immediate inclusion on the production schedule of a work order based on criteria that are determined by a combination of the item and the work center.
• The presentation of the schedule using the look of a traditional production board, but with the power of modern computing to provide alternative views by plant, work center, customer, work order, or combinations thereof.
• The ability to use drag-and-drop functionality to make rapid adjustments to the schedule in real time without the need for “Edit/ Save.”

The AVT solution streamlines your production planning and work center scheduling process so your work proceeds at an even and efficient pace throughout your factory.

AVT continues to work with its clients to ensure that there is a scheduling solution available to manufacturers who are utilizing the power of NetSuite.

It will continue to be a practical tool that helps users understand what is happening on the shop floor and allows them to take control when required.

The system will work for them, not the other way around!

Light Manufacturing Advanced on SuiteApp.com

Watch this Webinar to learn how to improve the efficiency of your Work Centres with built-in Time Tracking, multi-level BOM reporting, and Work Order scheduling and inventory management functionality.

Read our article “Fast and Made to Order” on page 51 in the previous magazine.

About Author

Dr. Gaurav Srivastava is CEO and founder of Absolute Vision Technologies (AVT), a NetSuite Partner since 2006. Gaurav has 12 years of solution development experience. AVT delivers ERP solutions and innovates on the NetSuite platform.Ross Leahy is Services Director of AVT and has 30 years experience in ERP for manufacturers across a broad range of industries.

The statements and opinions contained herein are those of AVT and not of NetSuite. NetSuite has not verified any statements or claims herein and assumes no responsibility for such statements or claims.