If you don’t have time to do it right the fi rst time, when are you going to fi nd time to do it again?
On Wednesday morning, just as she was preparing to go off to lunch, Judy Wilson, master scheduler for Criterion Electric Controls Company, received a call from the vice president of sales.
“Judy, I just got a call from our sales representative in Philadelphia.
He has a chance of making an important sale of an A3 control system to a big company out there if we can beat Drumlin Electronics in mak- ing delivery.”
“Well, that’s good news,” Wilson replied. “An A3 is a $120,000 unit.”
“Right,” said the sales vice president, “and this would be a new and important account for us—one that Drumlin has always controlled.
Once we get our foot in the door, other business should follow.”
Wilson knew that the sales vice president had not called just to an- nounce some good news. The phrase “if we can beat Drumlin Electron- ics in making delivery” was to be the real reason for this conversation.
The master scheduler braced herself for what was surely coming next.
“Here’s the deal, Judy. Delivery is the big issue in the sale. Drumlin has promised to expedite the order and deliver in just four weeks—not their usual fi ve.” The sales vice president paused for just a moment, preparing to drop his bomb on Wilson. “We have to do better to get the business. Could we have an A3 unit for this customer in three weeks?”
Wilson had just looked at the master schedule for A3s that morning and knew that the production line was totally committed through the period in question. She also knew that the cumulative lead time for a fi nished A3 was six weeks. “Is that three weeks to ship?” she asked.
“I’m afraid not,” the vice president responded. “That’s three weeks to the customer’s loading dock.”
Both knew that the product was too heavy to air freight, and that express trucking would take a full two days.
“Let me work on it,” Wilson said. “I’ll call you back in a couple of hours. I need to check the schedule and talk with some other people.”
While the sales vice president was off to a business lunch, the mas- ter scheduler went to work on the problem. She would spend the next hour or more reexamining the master schedule for A3s, several of which were on order and in various stages of production for other customers. She would consider current capacity and materials. And she would do whatever she could to make it possible for Criterion to deliver its A3 for the sales representative to open this important new account, and to ensure that all other customer commitments are satisfi ed. It was her job to make these things happen when she could.
By 1:30 that afternoon, Wilson was on the phone to the sales vice president. “Tell your sales representative in Philadelphia that he’ll get his A3 three weeks from today . . . on the customer’s loading dock.”
“Great, Judy! How did you manage it?”
“Well, we had an A2 already in production. I had your assistant call the account representative for the A2’s customer to determine if he could live with a two- week delay. We worked out a deal with that customer to offer a free extension on his warranty if he would take it two weeks later. The customer had no problem with it, and fi nance has approved the deal. I can upgrade that A2 to an A3 with available mate- rials and capacity and deliver as promised. Tell your sales representative that he has a green light on this one, if we can solve one problem.”
87
Managing with the Master Schedule
“What’s that?” the vice president asked apprehensively.
“Your Michigan representative has an A3 on order that will be de- layed by three to four days if we make these changes. Is that all right with you?”
The ball was back in the sales vice president’s court. But he was used to this give- and- take with Wilson, who had educated everyone to the fact that when the production system was carefully scheduled, even the most creative rescheduling to satisfy customers usually carried some sort of penalty.
“Yes, I can deal with the customer on that delay,” the vice president ended. “We’ll forward the order to you in an hour.”
As this story makes clear, there is much more to master scheduling than knowing how to move numbers around on the MPS matrix. Pro- fi ciency with the mechanics of scheduling is essential, but other skills are equally important: a sense of the company’s overall business and its customers, knowledge of its products and production processes, and understanding of the reliability of its suppliers, to name just a few.
These are areas in which judgment combined with a good business sense are critical, and they relate closely with the ability to use the mechanics of the MPS system to manage production operations.
In this story, the master scheduler used her master scheduling software tool to get a picture of current A3 production, capacity, and materials. But she went beyond this, thinking creatively about how the picture could be tactically rearranged to meet the interests of her company and its customers. Her knowledge of the company’s products and how they are manufactured allowed her to see how an A2 could be converted into an A3 on short order. And she had the organizational skills to work through other parts of the company—sales, marketing, engineering, fi nance, manufacturing, and management—to create a solution in a way that would be supported by all affected parties.
The mechanics of master scheduling (described in Chapter 3) pro- vide an important management tool, but the master scheduler must know how to use that tool, which is the focus of this chapter.