Operations Management

Chapter 17 : Operations Scheduling

Purpose of Scheduling
Scheduling methods
Forward scheduling
Backward scheduling
Scheduling Activities
Routing
Loading
Dispatching
Scheduling by Type of Operations
Job operations
Repetitive operations
Labor intensive operations
Service operations-
Scheduling techniques
Gantt charts
Johnson's job sequencing rules
Queuing analysis
Critical ratio method

Chapter Summary

Organizations schedule their activities in order to meet customers'requirements on time and improve their operational efficiency. Scheduling of activities is important for both manufacturing and service firms. An operation can be scheduled in different ways.

But they can be broadly divided into forward scheduling, backward scheduling and a combination of both. Routing, loading, and dispatching are the important activities in the scheduling of an operation. Routing describes the sequence of operations and the work centers that perform the work.

Loading assigns jobs to various work centers. Dispatching is the release of an order to start the production operation. The different priority rules in dispatching are: earliest due date, longest processing time, shortest processing time, first in first serve, and slack time remaining.

The method of scheduling also varies with the type of operation. Operations managers follow different approaches in scheduling job operations, repetitive operations, and labor-intensive operations. Appointment systems, reservation systems and strategic product pricing are the important approaches in the scheduling of service operations.

Operations managers can follow several scheduling techniques such as Gantt charts, Johnson's job sequencing rules, queuing analysis, and the critical ratio method to schedule their operations.

Next Chapter>>