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Insights on production scheduling, lean manufacturing, and manufacturing software from 35+ years of industry experience.

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Glossary (EDGEBIC)
Glossary (EDGEBIC)

What Is a Topological Sort in Job Scheduling?

A topological sort orders routing steps so every predecessor is scheduled before its dependent step. Learn how it keeps branching routings in the right order.

July 29, 20266 min read
Glossary (EDGEBIC)
Glossary (EDGEBIC)

What Is a True Alternate Work Center?

A true alternate work center is a capacity-aware fallback that replaces a busy primary machine when it can finish the job sooner. Learn how the swap works.

July 29, 20266 min read
Glossary (EDGEBIC)
Glossary (EDGEBIC)

What Is Actuals Preservation on Reschedule? Definition and Example

Actuals preservation means a reschedule never moves completed work: finished operations stay put by their actual dates while only remaining steps replan. Definition and example.

July 29, 20266 min read
Glossary (EDGEBIC)
Glossary (EDGEBIC)

What Is an Actual Date in Scheduling? Definition and Example

An actual date is when an operation really started or finished on the floor, recorded against the plan. Definition, how it locks completed work, and an example.

July 29, 20266 min read
Glossary (EDGEBIC)
Glossary (EDGEBIC)

What Is an Anchor Step in Scheduling?

An anchor step is the bottleneck operation a schedule is built around. Learn how anchor scheduling pins the constraint, then plans backward and forward from it.

July 29, 20266 min read
Glossary (EDGEBIC)
Glossary (EDGEBIC)

What Is an Idle Gap in a Schedule?

An idle gap is unused machine time between two consecutive jobs on the same instance. Definition, why gaps appear, the half-hour threshold, and how EDGEBIC flags them.

July 29, 20265 min read
Glossary (EDGEBIC)
Glossary (EDGEBIC)

What Is an Instance Collision in Scheduling?

An instance collision is when one machine is booked to two jobs at overlapping times. Definition, how it differs from over-utilization, and how EDGEBIC catches it.

July 29, 20265 min read
Glossary (EDGEBIC)
Glossary (EDGEBIC)

What Is an Inventory Ledger? Append-Only Stock Truth Explained

An inventory ledger is the append-only, signed record of every stock movement that is the authoritative on-hand figure. Here is how it works and why it never lies.

July 29, 20266 min read
Glossary (EDGEBIC)
Glossary (EDGEBIC)

What Is an Over-Utilization Check in Scheduling?

An over-utilization check flags a work center booked past its physical hours in a day. Definition, the 24-hour and shift-cap thresholds, and how EDGEBIC reports it.

July 29, 20265 min read
Glossary (EDGEBIC)
Glossary (EDGEBIC)

What Is Available to Promise (ATP) in Manufacturing?

Available to promise is the quantity you can honestly commit to a new order without breaking existing promises. Here is how ATP works, discrete and cumulative.

July 29, 20266 min read
Glossary (EDGEBIC)
Glossary (EDGEBIC)

What Is Capacity Utilization in Scheduling? EDGEBIC Definition

Capacity utilization is scheduled hours divided by available hours. See the formula, the CRITICAL to IDLE rating bands, and how EDGEBIC computes it per work center.

July 29, 20266 min read
Glossary (EDGEBIC)
Glossary (EDGEBIC)

What Is Consume-from-Stock Netting in Scheduling?

Consume-from-stock netting satisfies demand from existing on-hand instead of building it, so the scheduler only produces the shortfall. Here is how netting works.

July 29, 20266 min read
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