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Insights on production scheduling, lean manufacturing, and manufacturing software from 35+ years of industry experience.
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What Is a Simultaneous Capacity Slot in Scheduling?
A simultaneous capacity slot is a moment when every machine in a parallel group can start together. Learn the four checks it must pass and why it is all or nothing.
What Is a Targeted Reschedule?
A targeted reschedule re-plans only the jobs you actually changed, leaving every other job and its reserved capacity exactly where it was. Definition, example, and when to use it.
What Is a Work Center Availability Flag?
A work center availability flag tells the scheduler to skip a resource entirely, and an effective date keeps a machine out of the plan until it is commissioned.
What Is a Work Center Occurrence Suffix in a Routing?
An occurrence suffix distinguishes repeat visits to the same machine in one routing, so a job that mills, heat-treats, then mills again keeps two distinct steps rather than one confused one.
What Is an Import Run Log?
An import run log is the per-run file recording every row an import processed, its outcome, and the exact reason for each failure. Learn what it contains and how to read it.
What Is an Instance Selection Strategy in Scheduling?
An instance selection strategy decides which machine the engine prefers when several have room: spread the load, pack the busiest, or take the first. Learn all three.
What Is an Operation State in a Production Gantt?
An operation state is the color-coded flag on a scheduling Gantt bar that records how the operation got to where it sits: engine-placed, dragged, saved, replaced, or flagged for review.
What Is an Original Scheduled Date in a Production Schedule?
An original scheduled date is the start or end an operation received on its very first scheduling run, frozen and never overwritten, so per-step variance stays measurable.
What Is an Overnight Shift Wrap-Around in Scheduling?
An overnight shift wrap-around is how a scheduler handles a shift whose end time is earlier than its start. Learn the duration math and which calendar day the hours land on.
What Is Atomic Rollback in Production Scheduling?
Atomic rollback means a scheduling attempt that fails partway leaves zero residue: every booking it made is removed and the capacity it claimed is released.
What Is Drum-Buffer-Rope in Manufacturing?
Drum-Buffer-Rope is the Theory of Constraints method that paces a whole plant to its bottleneck. Learn the three parts and which of them a finite-capacity scheduler provides.
What Is Firming in Production Planning?
Firming turns a suggested build quantity into a real manufacturing order. Learn what firming commits, why it is idempotent, and how it differs from suggesting.
