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.
Forward Scheduling vs the Critical Path Method
Forward scheduling vs the critical path method: CPM finds the longest dependency chain assuming infinite resources, forward scheduling places that chain against finite capacity.
How Setup Families Cut a Combinatorial Problem Down
How setup families reduce scheduling complexity: grouping products collapses a product-by-product changeover matrix from thousands of cells to dozens, with the scale math.
Lead Time as the Sum of Its Parts
Lead time as the sum of its parts: setup, run, queue, move, and transit each add up, and queue usually dominates, so knowing the breakdown tells you where to cut.
One Big Machine vs Several Small Ones: A Scheduling View
One big machine vs several small ones: the same total capacity behaves differently under load, because parallel instances cut queue time and survive a breakdown, with numbers.
When Overtime Beats Resequencing (and When It Does Not)
When overtime beats resequencing: if the whole shop is capacity-short you need more hours, but if one machine is the constraint, resequencing is free and often enough.
When to Split a Job Across Machines vs Run It Whole
When to split a job vs run it whole: splitting across instances finishes sooner but doubles setup, so it pays when you need speed and have slack, not on a bottleneck.
Why 100% Utilization Is a Trap
Why 100% utilization is a trap: as a resource approaches full load, queue time explodes nonlinearly, so the last few points of utilization cost far more than they add.
Why the Bottleneck Sets the Pace of the Whole Shop
Why the bottleneck sets the pace: the slowest constraint caps throughput for the entire routing, so an hour lost there is an hour lost for the plant, with worked numbers.
Why the Same Routing Schedules Differently on Different Days
Why the same routing schedules differently each day: the routing is fixed but the calendar and the current load are not, so an identical job lands on different dates.
Anchor Scheduling vs Plain Backward Scheduling
Anchor scheduling vs plain backward scheduling: pinning a bottleneck to a target date against right-aligning a whole order to its due date, with worked dates.
Campaign Sequencing to Minimize Changeovers
Campaign sequencing to minimize changeovers: how sequence-dependent setup works, why grouping like with like frees capacity, and worked paint booth numbers.
Dependent vs Independent Parallel: When to Use Each
Dependent vs independent parallel work centers: when machines split the work to finish faster, when they must run in lockstep, and worked scheduling numbers.