How to Set the Order Jobs Are Scheduled In in EDGEBIC

To set the order jobs are scheduled in EDGEBIC, set each job's priority integer, where a lower number is planned first, and rely on start date then due date as the tie-breakers. EDGEBIC by User Solutions plans each job completely and reserves its capacity before starting the next, so on a busy plant the queue order is the plan. Set the sequence before you run, because reworking priorities afterward moves bars twice.

This is the sequencing procedure. To set a single job's number, see how to set a job priority in EDGEBIC; for the strategy behind it, read job priority and sequencing strategy. It is one of the task guides in the EDGEBIC how-to hub.

Before You Start

The Three-Level Sort

The engine decides sequence in a strict order:

1. Priority, lower number first. This is the primary lever and the one you control directly.
2. Start date, as the first tie-breaker. Among equal priorities, the job that may begin earlier is planned first.
3. Due date, as the second tie-breaker. If priority and start date both match, the job promised sooner goes first.

Because each job claims capacity as it is planned, the sequence is not cosmetic. On a loaded machine, whoever is planned first gets the good slots and everyone else fits around them.

Set the Sequence

1. On the Drive Schedule tab, click directly in the Priority cell of a job and type a new integer. Lower means earlier.
2. Repeat for the other jobs whose order you want to control. You do not need unique numbers; jobs that share urgency can share a priority and let the date tie-breakers order them.
3. Click Save Changes, the button that highlights once you have unsaved edits.
4. Tick the affected jobs and press Schedule + Re-Schedule so the new sequence is applied.

If your grid supports drag-to-reorder, dragging a row resets its priority value to match the new position, which is the same lever expressed visually.

What Changes When You Run

A Worked Sequence

Take one day shift, 08:00 to 16:00, one saw and one mill, no other load.

With the bracket at priority 1, it is planned first: saw Monday 08:00 to 10:00, then mill Monday 10:00 to 16:00 and Tuesday 08:00 to 10:00. The plate follows on the saw from 10:00 and reaches the mill Tuesday at 10:00. Both land on time and the mill runs with no idle gap.

Swap the priorities and rerun. The plate now holds the saw until 14:00, the bracket's cut finishes only at 16:00 Monday, and its eight mill hours consume all of Tuesday. Same orders, same capacity, a different queue, and the bracket's promise survives with zero margin. That is why the sequence belongs before the run.

How to Check It Worked

1. On the Gantt, confirm the job you promoted claimed the shared machine before the others.
2. Read the Days Late column across the affected jobs and confirm the trade-off matches what you intended.
3. Re-open a priority cell and confirm the saved value is the one you typed.
4. If two equal-priority jobs ordered surprisingly, check their start dates and due dates, which are the tie-breakers doing their job.

Common Mistakes and Gotchas

• Editing priority without saving. Inline edits light up a Save Changes button. Navigate away without clicking it and the edits are lost.
• Forgetting to reschedule. The new sequence only takes effect on the next run. Save, then run.
• Setting priorities after scheduling. Re-running to fix the order moves bars twice. Decide the sequence first.
• Giving every job a unique number. You do not have to. Equal priorities let the start-date and due-date tie-breakers order genuinely equal jobs meaningfully.

A word on when the sequence stops mattering. On a lightly loaded plant with plenty of open capacity, priority barely shows, because every job finds a slot regardless of order. The moment a machine fills up, the sequence becomes the plan: whoever is planned first takes the good hours and everyone else waits. That is exactly when a few minutes spent setting priorities before the run pays off, and exactly when re-running to fix the order afterward is most expensive, because the bars move twice and the shop floor sees churn. Set the queue deliberately on a loaded plant and let it stand.

To understand why the first-planned job wins on a busy machine, read how to run the scheduler in EDGEBIC and inside an EDGEBIC scheduling run. To free room on a jammed machine instead of resequencing it, see how to schedule a job at a specific utilization.

Bring a loaded machine and its job list and we will sequence it against your data in one session. Contact US to book it, or read the EDGEBIC product overview first.