Production scheduling refers to the detailed planning of the production process in order to optimize workflow for a specific time-period. It is an integral part of production management and a key tool for ensuring the timely and optimal execution of production plans.

What is Production Scheduling?

Production scheduling is the process of maximizing the efficiency of production by the detailed planning of manufacturing operationsin the short-term. It is aimed at preventing stock-outs, spotting bottlenecks, matching production with demand, as well as balancing inputs and outputs between workstations.

A production or manufacturing schedule is a flexible document that details all variables relevant to production for a given time-period. It contains information on what must be produced, as well as who will produce it, where, and how. A production schedule is geared toward optimizing workforce and machinery allocation, inventory movement and other production processes, in order to shorten lead times, reduce costs, and meet production targets.

What is Production Planning?

Production planning is the general process of balancing supply and demand in a relatively longer timeframe. It revolves around deciding when to produce your goods so that customers could be served on time in full (OTIF), building a realistic capacity plan, and drawing up a materials requirements list for the procurement team.

A coherent production plan ensures that the company can develop, manufacture, and finalize work orders in an efficient way and within predefined time frames.

In a way, the production schedule can be viewed as the tactical implementation of the strategic goals set by the production plan.

Read more about production planning.

The Importance of Production Scheduling

Production scheduling is crucial for optimizing manufacturing process flows to ensure maximum efficiency while minimizing or eliminating delays, unnecessary wastage, or potential interruptions. By using production scheduling, organizations can allocate resources within a given timeframe in the most efficient way.

Let us take a look at some of the key points that thorough production scheduling helps achieve:

• Optimal distribution of raw materials, inputs and spare parts. A balance should exist between production needs and available resources so that shop-floor workers have everything they need at hand when they need it. Planning for optimal distribution helps bring unexpected downtime and bottlenecks to a bare minimum.
• Balanced stock levels. Proper scheduling helps ensure that warehouses and distribution centers have the right inventory levels. When raw materials, components, and parts are in the right place at the right time, stock-outs as well as excessive standing inventory can be avoided and storage spaces can be kept better organized.
• Even labor distribution along planned time-steps according to production volumes and demand. Including the working hours, overtime or number of workers per shift in the production schedule enables meeting production demand more precisely. When demand decreases, excess staff can be assigned training, other tasks, or made redundant.
• Optimized equipment performance. As it deals with the sequencing and timing of operations, production scheduling reveals critical bottlenecks and other issues that help to iron out inefficiencies in equipment performance and utilization. Addressing this enables better resource allocation and capacity utilization. By keeping existing workstations utilized optimally, the need to install additional equipment or implement further production capacity is often eliminated.
• Inclusive financial considerations. Incorporating financial considerations into the planning and scheduling process enables to optimally appoint financial resources and investments into the right project. This helps ensure the highest return and allows organizations to better manage the availability of funds.
• Balance between lead time and product quality. An optimally planned and executed output means that the time it takes to convert raw materials into finished goods is kept as low as possible without compromising on quality. This equals shorter overall lead times, higher customer satisfaction, and an increased profit margin.

Common Production Scheduling Methods

There are a number of production scheduling techniques, tools, and software solutions available to handle the process. For example, many manufacturing ERP systems include powerful production scheduling capabilities. The most common scheduling methods include Infinite and Finite Capacity Planning, and Forward and Backward Scheduling.

Infinite and Finite Capacity Planning

Capacity planning defines how work constraints should be considered during scheduling. Infinite capacity planning assumes that there are no limitations to work resources. In other words, that there are no resource constraints and there is sufficient capacity of manpower and workstations available to finish all planned jobs. This usually works well when there are few relatively larger manufacturing projects going on at once and there is no threat of resource capacity overload or contest to workstations.

Finite capacity planning, on the other hand, considers the predefined limits of the resources required for production. For example, that a machine cannot be scheduled to work 10 hours per day, if only an 8-hour shift is available. This method is beneficial when there are many jobs with complex routings scheduled on different workstations and there is a high risk of developing bottlenecks. If there is insufficient resource capacity available, the work is scheduled on the next available slot, provided that there is enough material available to start production at the time.

Forward and Backward Scheduling

Forward and backward scheduling determine which operation in a production order the scheduling process starts from and in which direction it proceeds on the timeline. In forward scheduling, the earliest starting time is decided for each production run and operations are scheduled moving forward in time from the first operation to the last, one-by-one. This is useful for make-to-stock setups who wish to pack their schedules as tight as possible.

Conversely, backward scheduling starts by issuing a due date – when operations must be finished by, for each job. Operations are scheduled moving backward in time, starting from the last operation until the first, one-by-one. This is useful when working with strict due dates and following the just-in-time methodology to minimize work in progress and standing inventory.

See the functionality description of our production scheduling software.

Production Scheduling Stages

While there are many ways on how to exactly approach the scheduling of operations, the general production scheduling process includes the following components or stages.

Production Planning

A crucial first step of creating the production schedule – planning involves setting strategic goals and timelines, analyzing available resources and budgets, as well as calculating labor and capacity utilization for the planned production period. This step often involves setting up a master production schedule. The planning step can be designed to be static or dynamic, depending on whether production processes are forecasted to remain stable throughout the time-period or need to be flexible.

Routing Optimization

Routing refers to the path that the raw materials and components of the product take as they move through the production facilities on the way towards becoming a finished good. This production scheduling step aims to determine the most efficient routing and sequence of manufacturing operations.

Actual Scheduling

The scheduling aspect involves calculating and planning the timelines of the production schedule. It is the central step in the production scheduling process and consists of the actual scheduling of time, workstations, tools, and workforce of each stage of the production process. It also involves deciding whether parts or all of the production will be forward or backward scheduled.

Dispatching, Execution, and Continuous Improvement

Whereas the first three steps are theoretical, dispatching and execution are practical and activate as production starts for the planned time-period. Dispatching involves communicating the timeframes and adopted goals throughout the manufacturing operation. Execution is then putting the schedule in action in a coordinated way. Finally, continuous improvement involves two-way communication between management and the shop floor for feedback in variability, bottlenecks, etc.

Optimizing the Production Process

Plans are only as good as their execution. To make sure that the production scheduling steps mentioned above can be implemented hassle-free, it is important to consider how your manufacturing operation is set up. Let us take a look at some of the key aspects of manufacturing to consider in order to maximize the potential of a good production schedule.

Inventory and Supply Chain

It is important to keep inventory levels optimal to avoid stoppages, control production costs, and eliminate opportunity loss associated with under or overstocking. The right number of raw materials and sub-assemblies needed for production should thus be on hand or on their way to the production facility in a coordinated manner.

It makes sense to invest in proper inventory and supply chain management tools for manufacturing operations of any considerable size. A proper supply chain and inventory management system enables a host of automations and optimizations to efficiently manage procurements, shipments, order and component tracking, critical on-hand, pipeline inventory, and much more.

Equipment and Workstations

To keep to the schedule and ensure stable production, the equipment and machinery needs to be in order. Equipment maintenance should be routinely conducted to lower the chance of machinery failures and breakdowns. Spare parts for vital equipment should be kept on hand. The workstations should be kept clean and unobstructed.

It is also important to have a good understanding of workstation routings, cycle and setup times. Here too, capable production management software is essentially a necessity to keep the shop floor running as efficiently as possible in the modern manufacturing company.

Labor

Manufacturing comes down to the staff who run the workstations and keep production flowing. The workforce should be well informed and have a good overview of the upcoming production time-period. Effective communication of the production schedule to the staff is a must before starting production.

Not only should the employees be made available in the needed volume and appointed to the right posts, they must also have the right training and qualifications to operate the equipment.

Shop Floor

Finally, due attention should be paid to the general order of the manufacturing facility. Is the electric bill paid and do the lights stay on, are the compressors in order and pressurized, etc. The shop floor should be routinely maintained and set up in an efficient way to maximize the manufacturing potential of the facility.

This gets down to the details like keeping paths between workstations unobstructed, making sure that decoupling points can be restocked without having to stop machinery, etc. A well-planned shop floor is an essential part of the good manufacturing practices that every organization needs to have in place.

Choosing the Best Solution for Production Scheduling

There should always exist a balance between effort and gain. Choosing the optimal solution for the production planning and scheduling needs of a company is a balancing act to ensure that the total cost of ownership of a solution does not outweigh the benefits it brings.

Many production companies, especially new ones that are only starting their manufacturing operation, choose to not initially invest in powerful production scheduling software. They instead opt for the tried and tested spreadsheets approach and use Excel or its many analogues for managing their operations.

Excel is a well-known tool that strikes a pretty good balance between complexity and functionality for simpler and scaled-down operations. It does have a number of fundamental flaws, however, that limit its functionality as the manufacturing operation grows in scale and ambition.

Here are some of the disadvantages of using Excel for production scheduling:

• Files become too bulky. Excel files can be modified to quite a high degree, with even macros and custom coding being possible. As more and more data and functions are compiled, however, the file sizes eventually become very large, often reaching into the hundreds of megabytes or even gigabytes. This makes simple actions like opening and saving tedious and time consuming, and increases the risk of crashes and loss of data.
• Lack of functionality integration. To keep production flowing smoothly, different departments need to have a good overview of the unfolding production processes. The Manufacturing Planning team needs access to real-time Gantt charts, whereas Purchasing might need to customize the same Excel file to handle order tracking. This lack of functionality integration and synchronization limits the capacity of Excel files to accommodate all production process needs.
• Errors from manual data entry. Research has revealed that the vast majority of real-world Excel files used for complex business processes contain data entry errors. With a large amount of data entered into the system – as is the case with production planning – miniscule mistakes might snowball and turn into a data nightmare.

Manufacturing ERP With Powerful Production Planning and Scheduling Functionality

Unlike spreadsheets, manufacturing ERP software compiles crucial operational data from all relevant departments into a central database in real-time. This enables Procurements, Sales, Planning, Inventory – all the way down to individual workers operating workstations on the shop floor – to get access to critical information in the format most suited to each department’s needs.

The production planning functionality built into this kind of manufacturing software goes far beyond what Excel is capable of offering. A manufacturing ERP solution brings together everything you need to plan, schedule, and run your manufacturing operation with maximum efficiency.

MRPeasy is a cloud-based, full-suite production management software package that includes powerful production planning and scheduling tools. With MRPeasy, you can take advantage of interactive production calendar and Gantt charts, drag-and-drop rescheduling, automatic order reporting, dynamic managing of bills of materials (BOMs) and routings, individual workstation and labor managing tools, automatically compiled orders and accounting details, sophisticated order and item tracking, and much more.

Read more about How to Go from Excel to Manufacturing Software / MRP System.