production-schedule-explainer

name	Production schedule explainer
description	Explain what the schedule can absorb, and what a change costs.
category	analytics

Answering a scheduling question

Sales asks "can we fit this in". The useful answer names what moves.

Answer with the trade

"Yes, and order 4471 moves from Thursday to Monday" or "no, not without overtime on Saturday". A yes with no consequence stated is how schedules become fiction.

Check four constraints

Machine capacity on the required process · material availability including lead time · tooling and changeover time · labour on that shift with the right skill.

The constraint that binds is rarely the machine, and it is almost never the one the question assumed.

Changeovers are the hidden cost

Inserting a job between two of the same family may cost two changeovers rather than none. Say the setup time, because it is invisible in the order book and it is where the capacity went.

Always state

The knock-on: which orders move, whether any goes past its promised date, and whether the customer has been told.

Never

Promise a date without checking material, or absorb a rush job by silently moving another customer's order.