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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.
A Setup Family Change Did Not Take Effect
You reassigned a product's setup family or edited a family changeover cell, but the schedule still charges the old setup time. Here are the four documented causes and how to fix each.
An Imported Work Center Has No Capacity
A machine imported from a spreadsheet or database can arrive without the three things it needs to schedule: instances, shifts, and an active flag. Here is how to spot which one is missing and fix it.
My Forecast and a Firm Order Were Both Counted
When a forecast quantity and a firm order for the same period both show up as demand, the forecast consumption rule is what nets them together. Here is how consumption works and how to configure it.
My On-Hand Quantity Does Not Match the Inventory Ledger
When a part's on-hand number disagrees with the sum of its ledger entries, the ledger is authoritative and the on-hand is a cache. Here is how to confirm the drift and reconcile it.
The Anomaly Report Flags a Job I Think Is Fine
Not every anomaly row is a defect. Warning-level checks flag normal schedule texture, some findings are advisory, and stale data can flag a job already fixed. Here is how to tell a false alarm from a real one.
Two Steps of One Job Overlap When They Should Not
When two sequential operations of the same job run at the same time and no overlap was intended, here is how to tell a real dependency violation from configured lot streaming and fix it.
A Booking Falls Outside Its Shift Hours
When an operation's clock window runs outside the shift's working hours, a work-center shift override or a changed shift is usually the cause. Align the hours and re-run.
A Booking Points to a Machine Unit That Is Gone
An orphan instance booking references a machine unit that was removed after scheduling. Restore the unit or re-run the schedule so the engine picks a live instance.
A Job Shows a Zero-Length Bar on the Gantt
A zero-width or backwards schedule bar means the operation has no duration: the usual cause is a routing step with zero hours and zero setup, and the fix is quick.
A Job Shows Fewer Hours Than Its Routing Requires
When a job's scheduled hours fall short of its routing math, the cause is usually partial-completion accounting or an alternate work center with a speed factor. How to read it.
A Job Was Booked During a Machine Downtime Window
When a job schedules inside a maintenance window, the closure was almost always entered after the last run. How to model machine downtime today, and how to clear the booking.
A Job's Schedule Bar Is Wider Than Its Hours Suggest
When a Gantt bar spans far more calendar time than the work hours, the cause is a low utilization cap on the order, high queue time, a large setup charge, or shifts spread thin.