Production Scheduling
A key element of any manufacturing process is to determine how to produce my requirement in the optimal way, with this optimisation being defined as cost minimisation, capacity maximisation, etc. This requires consideration of several elements, such as:
- Resources capability and capacity
- Infrastructure constraints
- Batch sizes
- Change-over times
- Production costs
- Labour cost
- Available materials
- Waste (inventory, transport, waiting, over processing & production)
A Production Scheduling tool will ensure all constraints are met in the most cost-effective way. Additional benefits include:
- Improving the planning process, by significantly reducing the planning time and minimising planning errors
- Increasing the process visibility, allowing quicker and more accurate responses to unexpected events (internal or external)
- The collection of performance indicators, allowing the tracking of the current systems performance, and future continuous improvement initiatives.
As with the other optimisation systems, the tool allows analysing multiple scenarios as well as identifying new opportunities to save money.