O w n e r
Admin, assistant
Shop foreman
Lead engineer Vendors
Create and 1 send new project J
Report task status
Report task status
Report order status
Save project Record status
Tourjob sites
Revise schedule
Discuss production
schedule (Friday)
Revise schedule Identify problems
f •" •• "s
Discuss production
schedule (Monday)
Figure 4-5. Swimlanes diagram for production scheduling at Tanglewood Conservatories.
On Friday morning the owner and the assistant meet to discuss this schedule. The owner brings additional information about new orders and other updates from his visits to job sites. If necessary, the assistant updates the project files and creates a new schedule later that day. If the schedule shows that a customer order will be tardy, the assistant reviews the tasks on the critical path to identify the problem.
On Monday morning, the owner, the assistant, the foreman, and the lead engineer meet to discuss the schedule and any issues that have not been considered. The foreman and the lead engineer then know what they and their staff need to do that week. The foreman has the freedom to make small adjustments and to expedite tasks when possible to work ahead and improve resource utilization. (Note that, because installation operations at the job sites are independent of the fabrication and assembly operations at the shop, they are managed locally by a supervisor at each site.)
isolated optimization problem. It is hoped that this material will help engineers, analysts, and managers improve their production scheduling systems by considering the structure and behavior of the system. This will encourage researchers to develop new representations and to employ innovative methodologies for studying and improving production scheduling.
The study of production scheduling as a system of decision-makers is not complete. It would be useful to determine how representations such as swimlanes can be used most effectively to improve production scheduling systems. At what point in the process of improving production scheduling are such representations most appropriate? What level of detail is best? Are there good ways to prototype production scheduling systems?
For those who are trying to improve production scheduling in their factory, the ideas presented in this chapter should help them to take a more holistic approach to the problem. It can be tempting to think that the solution is to invent a better scheduling algorithm or to purchase and install new software. However, such solutions will fail unless one has thought carefully about the persons who do the production scheduling, the tasks that they perform, the decisions that they make, and the information that they share. Redesigning this part of the system will be a significant chore.
Software does not complain when it is uninstalled, but people complain when their routines are changed.
Improving production scheduling requires investments of fiinding, people, and time. The material presented here is no substitute for those resources, but it is hoped that these ideas will encourage and assist those who seek success.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to thank Charles Carr for providing information about the production scheduling system at Tanglewood Conservatories and NSWC Indian Head Division for their support.
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