Operations Scheduling and Sequencing

Scheduling is prevalent in nearly every organization and even in our personal lives

Scheduling – refers to the assignment of start and completion times to particular jobs, people, or
equipment

Sequencing – refers to determining the order in which jobs or tasks are processed

Scheduling applies to all aspects of the value chain, from planning and releasing orders in a factory,
determining work shifts for employees, and making deliveries to customers.

Staff Scheduling

Staff scheduling attempts to match available personnel with the needs of the organization by:

1. Accurately forecasting demand and translating it into the quantity and timing of work to be
done
2. Determining the staffing required to perform the work by time period
3. Determining the personnel available and the full- and part-time mix
4. Matching capacity to demand requirements, and developing a work schedule that maximizes
service and minimizes costs.

Appointment Systems

Four decisions to make in designing an appointment system:

1. Determine the appointment time interval

2. Determine the length of each workday and the time off-duty
3. Decide how to handle overbooking
4. Develop customer appointment rules to maximize customer satisfaction

Sequencing

- This is important when several activities use a common resource (people, equipment or
machine, delivery truck)

Sequencing Performance Criteria

1. Process-focused performance criteria – pertain only to information about the start and end
times of jobs and focus on shop performance (equipment utilization and work-in-process
inventory)
Two common measures:
a. Flow time – the amount of time a job spent in the shop or factory. It is computed by adding
the sum of all processing times of a job at workstation or area (run + setup times) and the
sum of all waiting times of a job at workstation or area which is also equal to the difference
of the completion time of a job and the ready time for a job where all materials,
specifications, and so on are available
b. Makespan – the time needed to process a given set of jobs. It is the difference of the
completion time of last job in the group and start time of first job in the group

2. Customer-focused due date criteria – pertain to customers’ required due dates or internally
determined shipping dates,
Two common measures:
a. Lateness – it is the difference between the completion time and the due date.
b. Tardiness – it is the amount of time by which the completion time exceeds the due date. If
the job is completed before the due date, tardiness is defined as zero.
3. Cost-based criteria – this includes inventory, setup, processing, and material handling costs.

Sequencing Rules
 1. Shortest Processing Time (SPT)
2. Earliest Due Date (EDD)
3. Others: First-come-first-served; fewest number of operations remaining . . . .

THE GANTT CHART IS AN EXAMPLE FOR MONITORING SCHEDULE PROGRESS

Single-Resource Sequencing Problem:

Consider a workstation that has one maintenance mechanic to repair failed machines. We can think of
the mechanic as the processor and the machines awaiting repair as the jobs. Let us assume that six
machines are down, with estimated repair times given here, and that now new jobs arrive.

Job 1 2 3 4 5 6
(machine #)
Processing 10 3 7 2 9 6
time (hours)

Sequence the job using:

a. SPT rule (compute for the flowtime, make span, lateness and tardiness)
b. Earliest-due-date (EDD)
-

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

 Explain the four principles of lean operating systems

 Describe the basic lean tools and approaches
 Explain the concept of lean six sigma and how it is applied to improving operations performance
 Explain how lean principles are used in manufacturing and service organizations
 Describe the concepts and philosophy of just-in-time operating systems

What is a project?
- It is a temporary and often customized initiative that consists of any smaller tasks and activities
that must be coordinated and completed to finish the entire initiative on time and within budget.

The stages of the project life cycle

Define – clearly define the goal of the project, its responsibilities and deliverables, and when it
must be accomplished (statement of work)
Example:
Project Objective: To develop an integrative software package within a predetermined budget
and promised completion date that meets all system requirements while providing adequate
interface with legacy systems.
Deliverables: 1) new software package 2) successful implementation of the package 3)
retraining of sales force and PC system operators
Next, identify the specific activities required to complete and the sequence in which they must
be performed
Activities – are discrete tasks that consume resources and time
Immediate predecessors – are those activities that must be completed immediately
before an activity may start (Precedence relationships may ensure that activities
are performed in the proper sequence when they are scheduled
For instance, activities A and B can be started anytime, since they do not depend on the
completion of prior activities. However, activity C cannot be started until both activities A and B
have been completed.

It has to be made sure that the list of activities is reviewed in order that no activities were
omitted from the project definition - - this entails the creation of a work breakdown schedule – it
 is a hierarchical tree of end items that will be accomplished by the project team during the
project (example, activity A might be broken down into individual tasks of defining the
objectives, developing the budget, determining the due date, and identifying staff)

The activities and their sequences are usually represented graphically by a project network
(consists of a set of circles or boxes called nodes, which represent activities, and a set of arrows
called arcs, which defines the precedence relationships between activities. This is called an
activity-on-node (AON) network representation.

Activity Activity Immediate Normal Time Normal Cost

Description Predecessors (in weeks) Estimate
A
B NONE 3
C NONE 5
D A,B 2
E C 6
F C 5
G E 3
H C 4
I D,G,F 3
J D,F 4
K H 2
I,J 2

A G

H J
C D K

B E F

1. Plan – the steps needed to execute the project is defined. It entails breaking down a project into
smaller activities and developing a project schedule.
Resource Planning includes developing time estimates for performing each activity, other
resources that might be required (like people and equipment, and a realistic budget)
2. Organize – involves these activities: forming a team; allocating resources; calculating costs;
assessing risk, preparing project documentation, and ensuring good communications
3. Control – this stage assesses how well a project meets its goals and objectives and makes
adjustments as necessary.
4. Close – closing a project involves compiling statistics, releasing and/or reassigning people, and
preparing a “lessons learned” list.

Three Factors Involve in Project Management Decisions

1. Resource Planning
2. Project Scheduling
 3. Project Control

• Resource planning includes developing time estimates for performing each activity, other
resources that may be required
• Project scheduling with the Critical Path Method (CPM)
• Project Control
- A schedule specifies when activities are to be performed. A schedule enables a manager to
assign resource effectively and to monitor progress and take corrective action when necessary

The Critical Path Method

- The CPM is an approach to scheduling and controlling project activities.

- Critical Path is the sequence of activities that take the longest time and defines the total project
completion time

CPM assumes:

 The project network defines a correct sequence of work in terms of technology and workflow
 Activities are assumed to be independent of one another with clearly defined start and finish
dates
 The activity time estimates are accurate and stable
 Once an activity is started it continues uninterrupted until it is completed

Earliest start and earliest finish times are computed by moving through the project network in a forward
direction from start to finish, sometimes called the “forward pass” through” the network. We begin at
the start of the project by assigning all nodes without immediate predecessors an earliest starting time
of 0. Two rules to guide the calculations of ES (early start) and EF (early finish)

Rule 1. EF = ES + T (the earliest time that an activity can be completed is equal to the earliest time it can
begin plus the time to perform the activity

Rule 2. The ES time for an activity equals the largest EF time of all immediate predecessors.

Activity-on-Node Format and Definitions

ES N EF

ST ST

LS T LF

N – Identification number of the activity

T – Normal time to complete the activity
ES – earliest start time
EF – earliest finish time
LS – Latest start time
LF – latest finish time
ST – slack time (the length of time an activity can be delayed without affecting the competition date for
the entire project, computes as ST = LS – ES = LF – EF

To illustrate this process, consider the following:

 EARLIEST LATEST EARLIEST LATEST SLACK
ACTIVITY TIME PREDECESSOR START START FINISH FINISH TIME

A 3 - 0 2 3 5 2

B 5 - 0 0 5 5 0

C 2 A,B 5 5 7 7 0

D 6 C 7 9 13 15 2

E 5 C 7 7 12 12 0

F 3 E 12 12 15 15 0

G 4 C 7 11 11 15 4

H 3 D,G,F 15 15 18 18 0

I 4 D,F 15 16 19 20 1

J 2 H 18 18 20 20 0

K 2 I,J 20 20 22 22 0

Rule 3. LS = LF – T (the latest start time of an activity is equal to its LF time minus the activity time

Rule 4. The LF time for an activity is the smallest LS time of all immediate successors.

Slack Time (ST) = LS – ES = LF –EF

Simplified Method:

Fill up the early start and early finish downward. If there are more than one choice (numbers), select the
highest number

Fill up the late start and late finish upward. If there are more than one choice (numbers), select the least
number

Rules

1. Early Finish of an activity becomes the early start of the succeeding activity
2. Early start plus number of days allocated to an activity equals to its early finish
3. Late finish minus number of days allocated is late start
4. Late start of an activity is the late finish of the preceding activity.