Blog
Insights on production scheduling, lean manufacturing, and manufacturing software from 35+ years of industry experience.
How the platform actually works: scheduling, optimization, the shop floor and ERP data.
What Is OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness)?
OEE is availability times performance times quality, the fraction of scheduled time that produced good parts at full speed. Learn how the three factors combine.
What Is Production Activity Control (PAC)?
Production activity control is the shop-floor execution layer that dispatches, monitors, and reports actual versus planned work. See how EDGEBIC fulfills PAC.
What Is Setup Time in Manufacturing?
Setup time is the time to prepare a machine for a job: tooling, cleaning, calibration. Here is what setup time means for scheduling and changeovers, explained.
What Is Shortest Processing Time (SPT) Scheduling?
Shortest processing time is a priority rule that runs the quickest job first. See how SPT lowers average flow time and how EDGEBIC uses it in its optimizer.
What Is Slack Time in Forward vs Backward Scheduling?
Slack time is the spare time between when work finishes and when it is due. See how EDGEBIC places slack after the work forward, and in front of it backward.
What Is Tardiness in Production Scheduling?
Tardiness is how many hours a job finishes past its due date. Learn how total and weighted tardiness are measured and used to protect priority orders.
What Is the Theory of Constraints (TOC)?
The theory of constraints (TOC) says plant throughput is limited by its weakest link. Here is what TOC means for scheduling around a bottleneck, explained.
What Is Variance in Manufacturing Scheduling?
Variance is the difference between planned and actual values: dates, hours, and cost. Learn how EDGEBIC tracks it and why it drives better next plans.
What Is Yield in Manufacturing Scheduling?
Yield is the fraction of input that becomes good output, used to inflate start quantities so the right number of good units survives. Here is yield explained.
What Is a Cost Rollup in Manufacturing?
A cost rollup adds up a job's labor and material from its scheduled routing, work-center hours times rate plus material cost, to give a total cost a quote can be priced from.
What Is a Downtime Type in Scheduling?
A downtime type classifies why a work center is unavailable, planned versus unplanned, so scheduled maintenance is already out of capacity while breakdowns trigger a review.
What Is a Punch Type in Shop-Floor Tracking?
A punch type is the state an operator was in during one recorded time segment, setup, run, idle, down, rework, or teardown, so each hour is attributed to a real activity.