Chapter 15 – Scheduling

Operations Management
by
R. Dan Reid & Nada R. Sanders
4th Edition © Wiley 2010

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Scheduling Operations
 Companies differentiate based on product
volume and product variety
 Differentiation affects how the company
organizes its operations
 Each kind of company operation needs
different scheduling techniques
 Scheduling has specific definitions for routing,
bottleneck, due date, slack and queue

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 Scheduling Definitions
 Routing: The operations to be performed, their
sequence, the work centers, & the time standards
 Bottleneck: A resource whose capacity is less
than the demand placed on it
 Due date: When the job is supposed to be
finished
 Slack: The time that a job can be delayed & still
finish by its due date
 Queue: A waiting line

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 Characteristics of High-Volume
Operations
High-volume aka flow operations, like automobiles,
bread, gasoline can be repetitive or continuous
 High-volume standard items; discrete or continuous with
smaller profit margins
 Designed for high efficiency and high utilization
 High volume flow operations with fixed routings
 Bottlenecks are easily identified
 Commonly use line-balancing to design the process
around the required tasks

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 Low-Volume Operations
 Low-volume, job shop operations, are
designed for flexibility.
 Use more general purpose equipment
 Customized products with higher margins
 Each product or service may have its own
routing (scheduling is much more difficult)
 Bottlenecks move around depending upon the
products being produced at any given time

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 Other Scheduling Techniques
 Forward Scheduling – starts processing when a job is
received
 Backward Scheduling – begin scheduling the job’s last
activity so that the job is finished on due date

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 How to Sequence Jobs
Which of several jobs should be scheduled first?
 Techniques are available to do short-term planning

of jobs based on available capacity & priorities

 Priority rules:

 Decision rules to allocate the relative priority of jobs at a

work center
 Local priority rules: determines priority based only on
jobs at that workstation
 Global priority rules: also considers the remaining
workstations a job must pass through
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 Commonly Used Priorities Rules
 First come, first served (FCFS)
 Last come, first served (LCFS)
 Earliest due date (EDD)
 Shortest processing time (SPT)
 Longest processing time (LPT)
 Critical ratio (CR):
 (Time until due date)/(processing time)
 Slack per remaining Operations (S/RO)
 Slack /(number of remaining operations)
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 Example Using SPT, EDD
Example Using SPT and EDD at Jill's Machine Shop-Work Center 101

Job Time Days to SPT Rule EDD Rule

Job Number (includes Setup & Run Time) Due Date Sequence Sequence
AZK111 3 days 3 EZE101 AZK111
BRU872 2 days 6 BRU872 EZE101
CUF373 5 days 8 AZK111 DBR664
DBR664 4 days 5 DBR664 BRU872
EZE101 1day 4 FID448 CUF373
FID448 4 days 9 CUF373 FID448

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How to Use Priority Rules
1. Decide which priority rule to use
2. List all jobs waiting to be processed
with their job time
3. Using priority rule determine which
job has highest priority then second,
third and so on

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 Measuring Performance
 Job flow time:
 Time a job is completed minus the time the job was first available
for processing; avg. flow time measures responsiveness
 Average # jobs in system:
 Measures amount of work-in-progress; avg. # measures
responsiveness and work-in-process inventory
 Makespan:
 The time it takes to finish a batch of jobs; measure of efficiency
 Job lateness:
 Whether the job is completed ahead of, on, or behind schedule;
 Job tardiness:
 How long after the due date a job was completed, measures due
date performance
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 Scheduling Performance Calculations
Job A finishes on day 10 Job B finishes Job C finishes Job D ends
on day 13 on day 17 on day 20

 Calculation mean flow time:

 MFT= (sum job flow times)/ # of jobs
= (10+13+17+20)/4 = 60/4 = 15 days
 Calculating average number of jobs in the system:
 Average # Jobs =(sum job flow times)/ # days to complete batch
= (60)/20 = 3 job
 Makespan is the length of time to complete a batch
 Makespan = Completion time for Job D minus start time for Job A
= 20 – 0 = 20 days
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 Performance Calculations con’t
 Lateness and Tardiness are both measures
related to customer service
 Average tardiness is a more relevant Customer
Service measurement as illustrated below
Example 15-5 Calculating job lateness and job tardiness

Completion
Job Date Due Date Lateness Tardiness
A 10 15 -5 0
B 13 15 -2 0
C 17 10 7 7
D 20 20 0 0
Average 0 1.75
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 Comparing SPT and S/RO
Performance Measures using SPT

Job Time at
Work Center SPT
301 Due date Completion Lateness Tardiness Scheduling
Job (days) (days from now) Date (days) (days) Sequence
A 3 15 5 -10 0 2
B 7 20 27 7 7 6
C 6 30 20 -10 0 5
D 4 20 9 -11 0 3
E 2 22 2 -20 0 1
F 5 20 14 -6 0 4
Total 27 Avg. Job Flow 12.83 -8.3 1.2
Total Job Flow Time 77
Makespan 27
Avg. # Jobs 2.85

E done at A end of D at end F at end of C at end of B done at end

end of day 2 day 5 of day 9 day 14 day 20 of day 27
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 Comparing SPT and S/RO (cont.)

Performance Measures Using S/RO

Job Time Remaining
at Work Remaining Number
Center Job Time at Slack of Operations
301 Other Work Due date Time After Work Scheduling Completion Lateness Tardiness
Job (days) Center (days) (days from now) (days) Center 301 S/RO Sequence Date (days) (days)
A 3 6 15 6 2 2 2 10 -5 0
B 7 8 20 5 4 1 1 7 -13 0
C 6 5 30 19 3 4.75 6 27 -3 0
D 4 3 20 13 2 4.33 5 21 1 1
E 2 7 22 13 3 3.25 4 17 -5 0
F 5 5 20 10 3 2.5 3 15 -5 0
Total 27 Avg. Job Flow 16.17 -5.0 0.167
Total Job Flow Time 97
Makespan 27
Avg. # Jobs 3.59

B done at A at end F at end of E at end of D at end of C done at end

end of day 7 of day 10 day 15 day 17 day 21 of day 27
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 Sequencing Jobs through Two
Work Centers –Johnson’s Rule
Johnson’s Rule – a technique for minimizing
makespan in a two-stage, unidirectional process
Step 1 – List the jobs and the processing time for each
activity
Step 2 – Find the shortest activity processing time
among the jobs not yet scheduled
1. If the shortest Processing time is for a 1st activity, schedule
that job in the earliest available position in the job sequence
2. If the shortest processing time is for 2nd activity, schedule
that job in the last available position in the job sequence
3. When you schedule a job eliminate it from further
consideration
Step 3 – Repeat step 2 until you have put all activities
for the job in the schedule
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 annual major cleaning of university buildings. The job requires
mopping (1st activity) and waxing (2nd activity) of each building.
Vicki wants to minimize the time it takes her crews to finish
cleaning (minimize makespan) the five buildings. She needs to
finish in 20 days.

Activity 1 Activity 2 Johnson's Activity 1 Activity 2

Hall Mopping (days) Waxing (days) Sequence Mopping (days) Waxing (days)
Adams Hall 1 2 Adams Hall (A) 1 2
Bryce Building 3 5 Chemistry Building (C) 2 4
Chemistry Building 2 4 Bryce Building (B) 3 5
Drake Union 5 4 Drake Union (D) 5 4
Evans Center 4 2 Evans Center (E) 4 2

Activity 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Mopping A C C B B B D D D D D E E E E
Waxing A A C C C C B© Wiley
B B2010 B B D D D D E E17
 Theory of Constraints
 TOC is an extension of OPT – theory is that a
system’s output is determined by its constraints
1. Identify the bottleneck(s) in the process
2. Exploit (fully utilize) the bottleneck(s)
3. Subordinate all other decisions to Step 2 -
Schedule non-bottlenecks to support maximum
use of bottleneck activities
4. Elevate the Bottleneck(s)
5. Do not let inertia set in

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 Scheduling for Service Organizations
 Demand management:
 Appointments & reservations
 Posted schedules
 Delayed services or backlogs (queues)
 Scheduling Employees:
 Staff for peak demand (if cost isn’t prohibitive)
 Floating employees or employees on call
 Temporary, seasonal, or part-time employees
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 Scheduling within OM: How it
all fits together
 Scheduling is the final planning that occurs before the actual
execution of the plan. Production planners track the performance
of operations in meeting the planned schedule. This is critical
because the master scheduler (Ch 13) evaluates production
planners on the level of customer service achieved for their
product responsibilities.
 Schedules are essential to shop floor supervisors. The amount of
time to complete a job is often determined by a time standard
(Ch 11). If the time standards are inaccurate (either too stringent
or too loose), the worker’s morale may be affected.
 Customers often need to know when the service will be provided
(cable installers) so that the customer is available. Customers
often link quality of service (Ch 5) with adherence to the schedule
(if the company delivers on time, everything is fine).

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Scheduling Across the
Organization
 Scheduling executes a company’s
strategic business plan and affects
functional areas throughout the
company
 Accounting relies on schedule information
and completion of customer orders to
develop revenue projections

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Scheduling Across the
Organization – con’t
 Marketing uses schedule effectiveness
measurement to determine whether the
company is using lead times for
competitive advantage
 Information systems maintains the
scheduling database
 Operations uses the schedule to maintain
its priorities and to provide customer
service by finishing jobs on time
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 Chapter 15 Highlights
 Different kinds of environments need different scheduling
techniques. Scheduling in the high-volume environment is
typically done through line design and balancing.
Scheduling in a low-volume environment typically involves
the use of priority rules.
 Shop loading techniques included infinite or finite loading.
Finite loading loads jobs up to a predetermined capacity
level. Loading can be done using forward or backward
scheduling
 Priority rules are used to make scheduling decisions. SPT
always minimizes mean job flow times, mean job lateness,
and average number of jobs in system. Rules related to
due dates tend to minimize the maximum tardiness of the
jobs.
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 Chapter 15 Highlights
 Performance measures reflect the priorities of the
organization. Mean flow time, mean job lateness,
mean job tardiness, makespan, and the average
number of jobs in the system measure the
effectiveness of schedules.
 Johnson’s Rule is a effective technique for
minimizing makespan when two successive
workstations are needed to complete the process.
 When scheduling bottleneck systems, the basic
principles of OPT apply. TOC expands OPT into a
managerial philosophy of continuous
improvement.
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 Chapter 15 Highlights
 Service organizations use different techniques
such as appointments, reservations, and posted
schedules for effective use of service capacity.
 A method developed by Tibrewala, Phillippe, &
Brown constructs workforce schedules when a
company uses full-time employees, operates
seven days each week, and gives its employees
two consecutive days off

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 Homework Hints
 Problem 15.5: Use the SPT priority rule to
schedule, then measure performance.
 Problem 15.6: Use the EDD priority rule to
schedule, then measure performance.
 Problem 15.8. Use the FCFS priority rule to
schedule, then measure performance. Add c. to
compare results of #5, #6, and #8.
 Problem 15.15: Use Johnson’s rule. Determine
performance measures, but don’t compare to #13
and #14.
 Problem 15.20: Assume all employees are full-time
(e.g., working 5 days/week).