The difference between planning and scheduling

It’s important to understand the difference between planning and scheduling in manufacturing. Planning is about breaking down a works order into individual operations and defining a logical sequence of events that will deliver a completed product. Part of this is understanding and managing the dependencies between those events and resources. So planning is effectively defining what is to be done and how.

Scheduling Manufacturing Operations

Scheduling is the when. It factors in times and due dates to apply a chronological order to the plan, so it can be visualised in some form of timeline. It also means that operations are assigned to a resource, ensuring that it will actually be available at the required date and time. Scheduling effectively provides specificity and targets to the plan.

Some systems specialise in planning and others in scheduling. Seiki Scheduler integrates both functions to make your job easier.

Manufacturing Planning

Whether the data has been imported from your ERP or business management system or you are manually creating orders directly in the Scheduler, the comprehensive tools within the Production Orders modules allows you to:

• Manage required delivery dates and quantities
• Control when Works Orders are released (made active) for scheduling
• Create template part records that contain works order routing details and master operation scheduling information
• Assign operations to automatic resource distribution groups
• Apply prioritisation to be used in scheduling to help avoid a critical job from running late
• Classify Works Orders with a Production Type so that you can easily filter and highlight them on the planning board
• Define kits of parts or assmeblies, and manage their operation interdependencies

Manufacturing Scheduling

As a finite capacity scheduling tool, the Scheduler takes the time and comlexity out of scheduling your workload.

• Define your capacity model with company calendars and weekplans
• Manage resources and adjust their individual workspeed (efficiency) factor
• Choose from and apply automated scheduling algorithms
• Generate and compare as many what-if scenarios as you need to get the best outcome
• Dynamically adjust your capacity model in response to real events and see instantly see the impact across the entire workload
• See the deviation from required delivery dates through graphical indicators and analysis screens
• See the live status of operations via data fedback from the Seiki AIR WIP Booking module or your existing Shop Floor Data Capture solution

The Benefits

Advanced planning and scheduling helps you to:

• Know the status and priority of each works order on the shop floor
• Know each operation in the manufacturing process.
• Know which machines or resources are required for each works order.
• Know when the machines or resources are required and when they will be available.
• Know the timings and delays between operations for more realistic production lead times.

Planning and scheduling is the most effective way of balancing revenues, customers satisfaction and operational performance. As such the Seiki Scheduler is a strategic decision support tool and as a graphical solution it’s easy to share the insight it provides with your whole team.