About the Book
This book is aimed at manufacturing and planning managers who struggle to bring a greater degree of stability and more effective use of assets to their operations, not realizing the degree to which production scheduling affects those objectives. It has been reported that 75% of the problems on the manufacturing floor are caused by activities outside the plant floor. Poor production scheduling strategies and systems are often the biggest contributors to the 75%.
The book explains in detail that no scheduling strategy, and especially no transition to a different and better scheduling strategy, will succeed without strong commitment and guidance from senior leadership. Leadership must understand their active role in the transition, that people will feel uncomfortable and even threatened by change, and that they will need to be measured by different standards. Effective scheduling requires that following the schedule and production to plan is more important than trying to maximize each day’s throughput.
The book explains the advantages of a structured, regularly repeating schedule: how it can increase throughput, right-size inventory based on cycles and variabilities and therefore make it more usable, and improve customer delivery. It will explain the trade-offs between throughput, inventory, and delivery performance, how those trade-offs are actually decided in production scheduling, and how an appropriate scheduling strategy can make the trade-offs and their ramifications visible. It discusses several popular structured scheduling concepts, their similarities, and differences, to allow the readers to decide which might fit best in their environments.
In addition, the authors discuss what makes an appropriate scheduling software system, and why a package designed for structured scheduling offers capabilities well beyond the Excel workbooks used by many companies, and how it offers much more design capability and ease of use than the finite scheduling modules in SAP or Oracle.
Finally, the authors offer a proven roadmap for implementation, critical success factors necessary to achieve the full potential, and give examples of operations that have done this well. In addition, a guide for leaders and managers post-implementation is provided to help them fully exploit the advantages of a structured, repeating scheduling strategy.
Table of Contents:
SECTION 1 – Introduction Chapter 1 Business Imperatives – Why Scheduling Matters Chapter 2 Characteristics of Process Operations - and Scheduling Challenges Chapter 3 Overview of Production Strategies Chapter 4 Scheduling Processes d Software
Chapter 5 Example Process SECTION 2 – Scheduling Strategies Chapter 6 Repetitive Scheduling Strategies Chapter 7 Dealing With Disruption SECTION 3 – Scheduling Processes, Systems, Software Chapter 8 The role of Forecasting Chapter 9 The Role of Inventory Chapter 10 Typical Scheduling Process Steps Chapter 11 Multi-Level Scheduling Chapter 12 Tanks, Bins, and Flow Paths Chapter 13 The Role of ERP in Planning and Scheduling Chapter 14 Excel as a Finite Scheduling Tool Chapter 15 Software Designed for Production Scheduling Chapter 16 Critical Ingredients, Raw Materials, and Components Chapter 17 Scheduling Software - Security and Privacy SECTION 4 – Prerequisites to Good Scheduling Chapter 18 The Role of the Plant Leader Chapter 19 Scheduling Readiness Criteria Chapter 20 Accessible, Accurate, and Complete Data Chapter 21 Effective Production and Capacity Planning Chapter 22 Workforce Engagement Chapter 23 Changeover Reduction – SMED Chapter 24 Production Stability Chapter 25 Cellular Manufacturing Chapter 26 Managing Bottlenecks and Constraints Chapter 27 Leading Scheduling Improvements to Drive Value: Five Steps for Leaders Chapter 28 Where to Begin - A Roadmap to Project Success Chapter 29 Critical Success Factors Chapter 30 Success Stories – Examples Of Scheduling Best Practices
About the Author :
Peter L. King, Mac Jacob, Noel Peberdy
Review :
Don’t underestimate the revolutionary nature of the concepts described and recommended in this book. This should be required reading for leaders in operations roles. Had more of our manufacturing organizations been built on this structured scheduling methodology, I believe our [Covid] response would’ve been stronger, quicker, and far less painful to our manufacturing teams, sales teams, customers, and consumers.
-- Dave Rich, VP, Strategic Sourcing & Fulfillment, Litehouse Foods
Effective production scheduling is a critical tool to optimize product-to-product transitions and one of the most critical factors to achieve truly effective use of your production resources. Peter King made a significant contribution to understanding and improving production scheduling in his first book. I have personally used his concepts with great benefit. Peter, Mac, and Noel have continued that work in this fine new book that will surely be of great value to process operators.
-- Raymond Floyd, SVP Suncor Energy (Retired) Current member of Manufacturing Hall of Fame, The Shingo Academy and the Baldrige Award Board of Overseers
By implementing planning wheels we were able to move from fill rates of ~75% to over 99% reliably in a 3- month timeframe. The approach to working with people on the floor captured in this book is key to managing the change needed to stabilize manufacturing. Having a predictable cycle of changeovers is huge to improve performance and improve morale on the factory floor.
--David Kaissling, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Shearer’s Snacks; and head of supply chain for several fortune 500 companies.
… a comprehensive resource on the "how" and "why" of production scheduling and how it enables improved manufacturing performance and business success.
-- Dave Rurak, Executive VP, Integrated Operations and Supply Chain, W. L. Gore & Associates
In my 35+ years in supply chain, it is rare to come across such an esteemed and knowledgeable group of practitioners in the area of production scheduling. This book is an outstanding reference and step by step guide on how to plan and schedule any repetitive manufacturing operation. … a "must-read."
-- Paul Baris, VP Planning Strategy, enVista
The concept in this book along with the Phenix planning tools allowed us to move very complex scheduling rules from head knowledge into a cloud-based system. It has improved our speed of scheduling and the consistency of scheduling to our established rules.
-- Dave Stauffer, Director of Supply Chain, Advanced Food Products
This book is a wonderful overview of the benefits of Product Wheels including all the pressure testing our wheels have had in the most disruptive of environments. An international pandemic, labor compression, and record inflation have really made plant scheduling even more challenging than it has ever been. Product Wheels have been the backbone of which to "grab on to" for these difficult environments.
-- Mike Evans, Senior VP Operations, Bellisio Foods
Production scheduling has long been a massively neglected part of the equation for maximizing customer service and shop floor performance, while minimizing cost and capital. [This] is an exceptional read on the value, mechanisms and alternatives to optimize shop floor performance. Kudos! to King, Jacob and Peberdy for providing such a comprehensive and unbiased handbook to practitioners and leaders everywhere!
-- Mike Wittman, Formerly Chief Supply Chain Officer, Pinnacle Foods, now Senior Advisor, Boston Consulting Group
