Blog
Insights on production scheduling, lean manufacturing, and manufacturing software from 35+ years of industry experience.
Everything we have published.
What Is Phantom Capacity in Scheduling?
Phantom capacity is fake schedulable hours no physical machine backs, created when a machine pool is treated as a resource itself. Learn how good scheduling design avoids it.
What Is Quality Rate in OEE? EDGEBIC Definition
Quality rate is the OEE factor for good output: good pieces over total pieces. See how EDGEBIC computes it from production punches and shows n/a without them.
What Is Re-Shopping in Work Center Group Scheduling?
Re-shopping is when a not-yet-started group step picks a machine again on reschedule against current capacity, while started work keeps its machine. Here is how it works.
What Is Shipped Quantity on a Sales Order Line?
Shipped quantity is how much of a sales order line has been fulfilled. Ordered minus shipped, floored at zero, is the open quantity still owed the customer.
What Is SQDC in Manufacturing? EDGEBIC Definition
SQDC is the Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost mnemonic for a standup board. See how EDGEBIC builds four honest tiles and marks the ones it cannot yet measure.
What Is the First-Time Setup Wizard?
The first-time setup wizard walks a new EDGEBIC installation from an empty database to a schedulable job in seven guided steps. Learn what each step configures.
What Is the Never-Worse Clamp in Scheduling Optimization?
The never-worse clamp compares an optimized schedule against your current plan and returns the current plan if the new one does not strictly beat it, so optimization can only help.
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.