Finite-capacity scheduling that understands machines, tanks, and pumps

What scheduling covers

• Four scheduling strategies in one engine Use Forward to finish work as soon as possible, Backward to hit a due date just-in-time, Leveling to balance load, or Drum-Buffer-Rope to protect throughput around a bottleneck.
• Built for discrete and process manufacturing The scheduler understands different constraints for machines, tanks, and pumps, including capacity, minimum and maximum hold times, cleaning, cooldown, and maintenance windows.
• Lot pipelining to raise throughput One order can be split into lots that flow independently and overlap across processes, so work does not have to wait for the whole order to finish before the next process starts.
• Workforce capacity taken into account Schedules use shift patterns from DuPont and Panama to custom rotations, and treat labour availability as a constraint. Named operator assignment is covered on the Workforce & Labour page.
• An interactive Gantt to control the schedule Reschedule with drag-and-drop, lock the slots that matter, apply changes in bulk, see resource utilization, and spot material shortages or late-order risk early.
• A Dispatch Queue for the floor Releasing an order pushes its first scheduled steps into the Dispatch Queue, where released work is grouped for the floor.
• Machine stops reach the plan at once A breakdown raised on the floor appears as a banner on the Gantt with the orders it lands on. Reschedule affected orders waits for the machine or moves steps to a sister machine in the same resource group.
• Capacity insights that work like an inbox The scheduler flags material, labour and machine shortages from its own figures. Each planner can mark them read, acknowledge or clear them, and an insight comes back if it gets worse.

Every resource has its own behaviour and constraints

Machines, tanks, and pumps cannot be treated with the same formula. The scheduler computes duration from the character of the resource in use, rather than from a duration figure typed in by hand.

Per-resource constraints can include tank capacity, minimum and maximum hold time, cleaning, cooldown, maintenance windows, and pump rates for both inbound and outbound transfers.

Tank occupancy is counted from start to finish

An intermediate tank is in use from the moment filling starts until its entire contents have been moved out. Counting only the dwell time can make a schedule look free when the tank is still tied up by a running process.

Changeovers depend on what ran before

Switching from one product to another rarely takes a fixed time. The Changeover Matrix stores the setup time between two specific products, and the scheduler sequences work with it.

• Sequence-dependent setup Setup time is looked up per product pair, so the order of jobs changes the total setup time.
• Cleaning is not counted twice The changeover time is the total. If the resource already has a cleaning gap, that gap is netted out, so a 90-minute changeover on a tank with 30 minutes of cleaning still takes 90 minutes.
• Equipment that runs several jobs at once An assembly bench, a test rack or a curing chamber gets a Concurrent Capacity per material on its Standard Rate. Jobs stack up to that limit, and a step turned away by a full machine is reported as such.
• Priority-driven sequencing Orders are sequenced by priority and due date, with Custom Priority Scoring per work center for finer control.

Decide which limits are hard and which are advisory

Each capacity type can be enforced or only reported. The choice lives in Settings, under Capacity Enforcement.

Machine capacity, tank volume and the fill, cleaning and cooldown rules are always enforced. These settings never relax them.

Change the plan without disturbing what is already running

• Clear with a preview Clear the whole schedule or only selected orders, and see what will be removed first.
• Running lots stay where they are Lots already in production are kept as they stand by both Clear and Reschedule.
• Bind planned lots to real units AS Lot Mapping links placeholder lots such as PO-1001-LOT-001 to the physical units, with a Quick Setup path.
• Adjust by hand when you need to Move a slot manually, apply an action to several slots at once, and review warnings and conflicts in one panel.

Four strategies, one engine

• Forward Schedules work as early as possible from the available start date. That is the right choice when the goal is to finish production sooner.
• Backward Works the schedule backward from the due date, so material and resources are not committed earlier than they need to be.
• Leveling Distributes workload across available resources so capacity does not pile up on one resource while others sit idle.
• Drum-Buffer-Rope Identifies the constraint resource and protects the flow of production around it, so the bottleneck does not throttle overall throughput.