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.
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.
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.