Workcenter Scheduling
PROF. LANKA KRISHNANAND,
PROFESSOR, MED,
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,
WARANGAL – 506004
TELANGANA.
Introduction
Workflow equals cash flow, and scheduling lies at the heart of the
process. A schedule is a timetable for performing activities,
utilizing resources, or allocating facilities.
Operations scheduling is at the heart of what is currently referred
to as Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES). An MES is an
information system that schedules, dispatches, tracks, monitors,
and controls production on the factory floor. Such systems also
provide real-time linkages to MRP systems, product and process
planning, and systems that extend beyond the factory, including
supply chain management.
Workcenter
A workcenter is an area in a business in which productive resources
are organized and work is completed. The workcenter may be a single
machine, a group of machines, or an area where a particular type of
work is done.
These workcenters can be organized according to function in a
workcenter configuration or by-product in a flow, assembly line, or
group technology cell (GT cell) configuration.
jobs need to be routed between functionally organized workcenters to
complete the work. When a job arrives at a workcenter—for example,
the drilling department in a factory that makes custom-printed circuit
boards—it enters a queue to wait for a drilling machine that can drill
the required holes. Scheduling, in this case, involves determining the
order for running the jobs, and also assigning a machine that can be
used to make the holes.
Infinite Vs Finite Loading
A characteristic that distinguishes one scheduling system from another
is how capacity is considered in determining the schedule. Scheduling
systems can use either infinite or finite loading. Infinite loading occurs
when work is assigned to a workcenter simply based on what is needed
over time. No consideration is given directly to whether there is
sufficient capacity at the resources required to complete the work, nor
is the actual sequence of the work as done by each resource in the
workcenter considered. Often, a simple check is made of key resources
to see if they are overloaded in an aggregate sense. This is done by
calculating the amount of work required over a period (usually a week)
using setup and run time standards for each order. When using an
infinite loading system, lead time is estimated by taking a multiple of
the expected operation time (setup and run time) plus an expected
queuing delay caused by material movement and waiting for the order
to be worked on.
Infinite Vs Finite Loading
A finite loading approach actually schedules in detail each
resource using the setup and run time required for each order. In
essence, the system determines exactly what will be done by
each resource at every moment during the working day. If an
operation is delayed due to a part(s) shortage, the order will sit in
the queue and wait until the part is available from a preceding
operation. Theoretically, all schedules are feasible when finite
loading is used
Forward Vs Backward Scheduling
For this forward–backward dimension, the most common is forward
scheduling. Forward scheduling refers to the situation in which the
system takes an order and then schedules each operation that must
be completed forward in time. A system that forward schedules can
tell the earliest date that an order can be completed. Conversely,
backward scheduling starts from some date in the future (possibly a
due date) and schedules the required operations in reverse
sequence. This tells the latest time when an order can be started so
that it is completed by a specific date.
A material requirements planning (MRP) system is an example of an
infinite loading, backward scheduling system for materials. With
simple MRP, each order has a due date sometime in the future.
Manufacturing systems Vs
Scheduling Approaches
Typical Scheduling and Control
Functions
The following functions must be performed in scheduling and
controlling an operation:
Allocating jobs, equipment, and personnel to workcenters or other
specified locations. Essentially, this is short-run capacity planning.
Determining the sequence of order performance (that is,
establishing job priorities). Initiating performance of the scheduled
work. This is commonly termed the dispatching of jobs.
Shop-floor control (or production activity control) involving:
Reviewing the status and controlling the progress of jobs as they are
being worked on.
Expediting late and critical jobs.
A simple workcenter scheduling
process is shown below
Objectives of Workcenter
Scheduling
(1) meet due dates,
(2) minimize lead time,
(3) minimize setup time or cost,
(4) minimize work-in-process inventory, and
(5) maximize machine or labor utilization
It is unlikely, and often undesirable, to simultaneously satisfy all of these
objectives. For example, keeping all equipment and/or employees busy may
result in having to keep too much inventory. Or, as another example, it is
possible to meet 99 out of 100 of your due dates but still have a major
schedule failure if the one due date that was missed was for a critical job or
key customer. The important point, as is the case with other production
activities, is to maintain a systems perspective to assure that workcenter
objectives are in sync with the operations strategy of the organization.
Job Sequencing
The process of determining the job order on some machine or in
some workcenter is known as sequencing or priority sequencing.
Priority rules are the rules used in obtaining a job sequence.
These can be very simple, requiring only that jobs be sequenced
according to one piece of data, such as processing time, due
date, or order of arrival. Other rules, though equally simple, may
require several pieces of information, typically to derive an index
number such as the least slack rule and the critical ratio rule
(both defined later). Still others, such as Johnson’s rule (also
discussed later), apply to job scheduling on a sequence of
machines and require a computational procedure to specify the
order of performance.
Priority rules for Job Sequencing
The following standard measures of
schedule performance are used to evaluate
priority rules:
1. Meeting due dates of customers or downstream operations.
2. Minimizing the flow time (the time a job spends in the process).
3. Minimizing work-in-process inventory.
4. Minimizing the idle time of machines or workers.
Scheduling n jobs on one machine
Solutions using various priority
rules
Solutions for LCFS, Random and
STR
Performance of priority rules
Scheduling of n jobs on two
machines
Johnson’s method (after its developer), is to minimize the flow
time from the beginning of the first job until the finish of the last.
Johnson’s rule consists of the following steps:
List the operation time for each job on both
machines.
Select the shortest operation time.
If the shortest time is on the first machine, do the job
first; if it is on the second machine, do the job last.
In the case of a tie, do the job on the first machine.
Repeat Steps 2 and 3 for each remaining job until the
schedule is complete.
Example 1
Solution
Scheduling a Set Number of Jobs
on the Same Number of Machines
Some workcenters have enough of the right kinds of machines to
start all jobs at the same time. Here, the problem is not which job
to do first, but rather which particular assignment of individual
jobs to individual machines will result in the best overall
schedule.
The assignment method is a special case of the transportation
method of linear programming. It can be applied to situations
where there are n supply sources and n demand uses (such as
five jobs on five machines) and the objective is to minimize or
maximize some measure of effectiveness.
Example
Solution steps
