DISPATCHING

24.1.2011
 Dispatching
• Dispatching is the most tricky part of
production planning and control. It
concerns in physical release of
manufacturing order and allocation of jobs
to workmen on different machines;
withdrawing materials and tools for such
jobs from stores and delivering in advance
to shops; supervising movement of
materials from and to the machines and
inspection bays; keeping records of idle
time and spoilage of jobs during
manufacturing; co-ordination with
scheduler and shops; exercising day-to-
day control on work-in-progress; and
reporting delays and interruptions.
Dispatches, therefore, may be looked
 Functions of Dispatching
• The principle functions of dispatching
are:
a)Release of manufacturing
orders: The primary function of
dispatching is to prepare a
manufacturing-order-set which
consists of shop orders,
operational layouts, pre-filled-
stores-issue orders, tool orders,
move orders, inspection orders
b) Stores Issues: Another important function of dispatcher
is to withdraw required quantity of materials from stores
and deliver it to the machine where the first operation is
to be performed well before the scheduled start of the job.
The most common practice is to make use of stores issue
order.
Stores issue order is though prepared for the item as soon as

the route sheet is ready yet it is not desirable to issue it

too early because:
i. Material may or may not be available at the time of
preparation of stores issue order.
ii. It will cause congestion on the shop floor if material is
moved too early in advance of the scheduled start of
the job.
c) Return of “surplus” or left over material: At times
materials issued against “stores issue orders” are not fully
consumed. There are number of reasons why surplus
material is left on the shop floor after the quantity on the
shop floor is completed. Return of such surplus materials
is the responsibility of the dispatcher which he does
d)Tools Issue: Equally important is the
dispatcher’s function of movement of
tooling to the work centre where it is
required.
• Tooling includes:
i. Consumable tools such as drills,
reamers, metal cutting saws, inserts,
carbide tools, hobs, gear shaping
cutters, broaches, milling cutters,
etc. Consumables tools are stored at
the company’s subsidiary stores-
tool cribs-and are issued to the
workmen against tool vouchers or
token numbers.
ii. Machine aids such as vices, chucks, collets,
tool arbors, etc. Machine aids are usually
kept in a separate fixture store and require
to be issued at the time of the set-up of the
machine tool.
iii. Work aids such as jigs and fixtures, work

arbors, copying templates, broaching

fixtures and broach holders etc.
iv. Inspection aids such as verniers,

micrometers, gauges, inspection fixtures

etc. Inspection aids are stored at the
company’s subsidiary store-tool cribs and
require to be issued to the workmen against
tool vouchers.
e) Shop and Inter-departmental


transport constitutes yet another

important function of dispatching.
Materials movement from stores to the
first work centre is generally the
responsibility of the dispatcher which
may be organized by the issue of move
order to the shop laborers, truck
drivers, or specialist movemen. The
materials movement between
workcentres is achieved by fixing
responsibility on the shop supervisors
who are expected to inform the
movement when a particular batch has
f) First off and stage inspection is undertaken


by the inspection department on the receipt of

“Inspection order” from dispatcher’s office. A
written inspection order is necessary to
authorize inspection to verify the correctness of
the machine tool set-up. The most common
method is produce one/two pieces on the
machine after it has been set up and offer the
same to the inspection together with the
inspection [Link] order is needed
for simple jobs which can be inspected by the
shop inspector with the tooling available on the
shops. An inspection order is necessary when
the job requires detailed verification of one or
more of the job characteristics with the help of
special equipment which is not available at the
producing company.
g) Co-ordinator with scheduler:


Routing lays down the operations

and their sequence while scheduling
assigns timings to be different
operations to be performed by
different men and machines. These
two activities are co-ordinated on the
shop floor by dispatching cell of the
PPC. Rarely, the progress of work is
in line with its plan. It is either ahead
of the schedule or it is behind the
schedule due to following reasons:
Ø The operators may be working under an
incentive scheme and as a result jobs
get completed ahead of time.
Ø There may be certain inaccuracies in
the performance standards and as a
result jobs either run ahead of time or
fall behind schedule.
Ø Absenteeism.
Ø Sub-standard performance against pre-
fixed production standards.
Ø Machine breakdowns.
h)Allocation of jobs to machines :
Dispatcher at times in consultation
with the shop foreman may also
perform the final stage of planning
i.e. allocation of individual
operations to individual machines.
This becomes possible only when
scheduling is semi-centralised
wherein weekly or fortnightly work
load is given to each shop.
i) Forwarding material to dispatch or


to finished parts stores constitutes

yet another important function of
dispatching. Goods after final
inspection are forwarded to either
dispatch section or the finished parts
stores. They need to be accompanied
by the document called forwarding
note to establish dispatch
department to identify the items and
draw correct reference.
j) Collection of route sheets and
operational layouts at the end of
production run:
 Operational layouts, after goods have
been manufactured, require to be
collected back from the shops and filed
so that they can be re-issued at a later
date. If operation lay outs are not
collected and are allowed to remain
with the shops, they get dirty or even
lost, thus requiring to be replaced at
the time of repeat production run. This
 How Dispatching Function is Performed.
The dispatching function can be performed conveniently through the use of
what is called a control board. A control board contains sections, one for each
machine. Each section is divided into three compartments which are used as
under.
1. The top compartment contains the copy of the work order / shop order of
the item currently being worked on the machine.
2. The middle compartment contains the copy of the work order / shop order
of the item to be processed next on the machine.
3. The bottom compartment contains the bunch of work orders/ shop orders,
arranged one after another in the sequence in which they are to be
processed.
4. As the work progresses and the work order/ shop order in ‘top
'compartment is completed, the work order / shop order from the
‘middle’ compartment is transferred to the top compartment, and next
held in ‘bottom’ compartment is moved into middle compartment.
 A Control board thus gives an immediate view of the machine
loading activity in the workshop. Such pictorial view is useful to:

v Know whether all machines in the workshop are engaged. Machines which are
idle can be identified immediately, these being the machines whose top
compartment is lying vacant.
v Identify the machine to which no further job has been allocated, this being
indicated by absence of the work order / shop order in the “ middle
compartment”
v Obtain an idea of the reserve load on a machine, indicated by the number of
work orders / shop orders in the “ bottom compartment”.
v Avoid crowding of the jobs at a particular machine by change of route of some
of the jobs or by diverting work to other machine.
v Avoid idle time of the machines by change or route of some of the jobs or
diverting jobs from other machines.
v Know at a glance the machines which are idle because of breakdowns, lack of
orders , operator’s absenteeism etc. This is known from the colour of the
card in the top compartment inserted by the dispatcher as soon as cause was
reported.
 Dispatching Under Different
Situations
• The complexity of dispatcher’s work varies with
the type of manufacture. The dispatching
function is of very little importance in flow
and mass production units as the dispatcher’s
work is merely limited to the dispatch of the
materials necessary to manufacture the
product. The material automatically pass
through different stages of the production
line.
• Dispatching in jobbing production units is
usually complex. New tools are often
necessary; gauges require to be set for each
new job; revision in the route of the parts is
necessary so that work is evenly distributed
etc. As the flow of materials is discontinuous,
it therefore, becomes the duty of the
dispatcher to control movement of materials
 Documents in Dispatching
• The following documents are generally prepared to perform
dispatching function:
1) Job cards/ time tickets (one for each operation) to provide
foreman with instructions to perform the operation as
shown in it.
2) Stores issue order to instruct stores department to issue
material.
3) Tool order(one for each operation) to instruct tool crib to
keep necessary tools ready for issue.
4) Move order to instruct movement of material from stores to
the first machine and between departments.
5) Inspection order (one for each stage of inspection) to report
inspection results.
6) Machine set-up order to instruct setters to set-up machine
tools mentioned therein.
7) Forwarding note to inform dispatch/finished parts stores
regarding the description of the goods accompanying
the note.