Hand to Paper Scheduling
Flawless synchronicity of production schedules and material ordering, setup-time reduction, lead time shortening, and inventory reduction are the hopes and dreams of human schedulers in manufacturing. However, this feat is quite elusive if we would just rely solely on hand-to-paper scheduling and a couple of human scheduling managers who, in their fear of their own deadlines, tend to hoard scheduling processes, which results in definitive casualties. These are only some of the common mistakes that human schedulers make. Unfortunately, these are not the only problems that are at hand. As was cited on Asprova’s Case Study number 4, there are several other problems namely:
- Heavy workload that relentlessly stresses scheduling managers who are trying to keep up with frequent order changes through manual hand-to-paper scheduling methods,
- Excessive inventory hoarding (which was mentioned above) with the intent to avoid late delivery and confuse production in the face of frequent schedule changes that turns out the other way around,
- Unnecessary raw material inventory and handwriting of material orders due to inconsistency between material ordering and scheduling.
This seemed to be a recurring, endless battle for the Auto Parts Company schedulers who were the subject of the study. Fortunately for them, who needed a solution to these three common problems, they came to know about a Finite Capacity Scheduling software that offers guaranteed success on these problematic areas—Asprova.
Asprova to the Rescue!
Fast forward a few, the time to install Asprova on their systems came. The company prepared the necessary data and determined the system specifications. After the easy installation of Asprova, the schedule creation takes just a couple of hours, greatly reducing the load, and stress, on the scheduling manager, which was the objective in the first place. Asprova has also enabled scheduling accuracy, making full use of the precise data prepared at installation. As a result, the factory not only produces items as scheduled but was able to reduce setup time, lead time, and inventory—three of the most important factors in manufacturing and production. They can now order materials by sending their source data directly to the mainframe so that enough materials can be kept all the time without worrying about wastes.
Truly, synchronization of processes with the help of Asprova resulted into three remarkable improvements that should be highlighted in this case study:
- Impressive reduction of time required to make a schedule down to a couple hours, reducing the workload of the scheduling managers;
- Enhanced accuracy of scheduling, reducing setup time, lead time, and inventory;
- And lastly, enabled source data for material orders to be sent automatically to the mainframe computer, preventing material shortages.
Asprova, is indeed, the saving grace of human scheduling managers.