Essay Example on Effective Schedule Management: Prioritize Time & Resources

Introduction

Schedule management is the procedure developing, sustaining as well as communicating schedules for a time as well as resources regarding a particular project. In other terms, a schedule is a timetable for a portfolio, project, or program. Different ventures are undertaken by an organization that usually compete for the same resources, and to address the challenges that arise in the scheduling process, and the scheduling techniques can be grouped into two groups that are; the forward scheduling as well as backward scheduling.

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The forward scheduling involves planning for a venture or project as soon as the resources and the project requirements are available (Heizer, Render & Munson, 2017). This kind of technique is used in different organizations such as the restaurants as well as hospitals. The organizations that use this kind of scheduling technique usually perform the activities as per the client's order, and the delivery is as soon as possible in many cases, forward scheduling leads to a pile of the work in progress inventory.

The backward scheduling often begins with the setting of the deadlines; this, in other words, means the first thing is setting the final deadlines for the project before commencing the operations. Then steps are taken in the job scheduling process in the reverse order that means subtracting the lead time for each item; hence the start time is identified. The backward scheduling is mainly prevalent in the manufacturing, service as well as governs related projects (Heizer, Render & Munson, 2016). However, in practice, a combination of the scheduling techniques is used to determine a tradeoff amongst what can be accomplished, and the customer preferred deadlines.

However, other factors exist, and they further make the scheduling process challenging such as increased absenteeism, faults in the machines used, shortages in both labor force and resources as well as quality issues. It is also a fact that assigning due dates to various projects dues; not automatedly guarantees that the project will be completed within the set dates.

Other techniques do not necessarily need the capacity check, and they are referred to as infinite loading. In this kind of method, all the workload that needs to be completed in a specific period is assigned without consideration for capacity. The benefit of infinite loading is an initial schedule that meets the due dates, and the adjustments are made when the workloads exceed the capacity set either on the capacity or the timelines.

Scheduling Criteria

The appropriate or suitable scheduling technique is dependent on the number of orders, the complexity of the project as well as the nature of operation in addition to the importance placed in each of the criteria. the scheduling criteria is as follows

• Minimize the completion period: And it is determined by evaluating the average time used to complete a particular item.
• Maximize utilization: This is established by assessing the percentage of the number of times the facility is employed.
• Minimization of the work in progress (WIP) inventory criteria: and it is mainly determined by assessing the number of items in the scheme. The connection amid the sum of jobs and the WIP inventory will be considerably high hence the lower the number of items in the order, the lesser the stock.
• The minimum customer waiting time

Scheduling Process Focused Facilities

Process focused facilities, frequently known as job shops, are coming in the high range low capacity manufacturing and service companies (Heizer, Render & Munson, 2017). These facilities yield already make to order goods or services, and all are inclusive, including the auto repair garages as well as hospitals and beauty salons products. The production process in this system differs from the rest considerable interns of the materials used, time, resources, etc. and owing to this, scheduling becomes very complicated. For a stable running of the system, planning and control is a need in such a way that:

• There is the planning of the incoming orders without capacity constraint violation
• The management of tools and resources before production
• The setting of timer limits per job and monitoring of the order project against the need dates as well as the lead time.
• Monitoring of work in progress for the jobs in the shop
• Offering feedback concerning the production and plant activities

Regardless of whether the system is automated or manual, it should be accurate, and this means that it must have a production database equipped with both production as well as a control file. There are three planning files which include an item master, a routing as well as a work center master file.

Scheduling Issues

The scheduling process in a project management mailing involves the miming of all operations. The primary issue in the scheduling processing concerns the decisions made, and a series of decisions have a different effect on the scheduling process, which starts from the capacity planning, which involves the facilities as well as the resources available. The capacity planning is done annually since this is the period where a company purchases new equipment's or discard the old ones (Heizer, Render & Munson, 2017). On the contrary, the aggregated planning is done every month and concerns to the use of facilities, outside contractors as well as employees. In the aggregate plan, the resources are allocated based on total, tons, or units as well as shop time. However, the employment of the master schedule makes it possible to plan for a specific survive or product every week. However, the short-term programs play the role of translating the capacity decisions, the master schedules as well as the aggregate planning into job series and precise assignments to employees, machinery as well as materials.

The main aim of scheduling is to avail resources and prioritization of demand to facilities. However, some factors have to be considered for a successful prioritizing as well as allocation that is, the scheduling technique either forward or backward, the infinite or finite loading, as well as the criteria of priorities.

Loading Jobs

Loading is described as assigning tasks so that idle time, costa, as well as the completion time, can be lessened. The loading centers takes two forms, the oriented capacity and the other is linked to assigning precise jobs to work locations. Loading is examined in two ways from the capacity perspective through the input-output control.

The Input-Output Control

Many organizations experience challenges in the scheduling process because they tend to overload the production procedure, and this is because many organizations have no idea of the actual performances in the work locations. Successful organizations do well because they match the schedules appropriately to performance.

The input-output method allows the operations manager to control the facility workflow. In instances where the process is slow, and the work arriving is fast, then the facility is overloaded hence resulting in a backlog (Heizer, Render & Munson, 2016). The overloading has an overcrowding effect in the facility and consequently result in ibn inefficiencies and quality issues. On the contrary, if the process at the facility are done faster than the work arriving at the facility then the facility is underloaded, and the facility may run out of work, and this leads in wastage of resources and idle capacity.

References

Heizer, J., Render, B., & Munson, C. (2016). Principles of operations management: sustainability and supply chain management. Pearson Higher Ed.

Heizer, J., Render, B., & Munson, C. (2017). Operations Management: Sustainability and Supply Chain.