Job Shop Scheduling Problem

Scheduling a custom job shop or machine shop can be quite a challenge.  There are a number of problems that can occur:

• The bottlenecks in job shops can move based on the volume and type of work.
• Work is typically low volume high mix but a production job may be run from time to time, or prototypes will be produced.
• Most jobs are made to order, but there are some shops that may make a stock part in addition to custom parts.
• Some job shops and machine shop will do repair work in addition to producing new jobs.
• Some shop will do on site new work or on site repairs.  
• Emergency work can take a fair amount of capacity and be very disruptive.
• In some cases, customers call in make changes - quantity, dates, or change their order completely.
• Employees are typically not cross trained or cross trained very little so the skill needed isn't always available.
• Employees don't always show up for work.
• Set up times can vary and some can take a substantial amount of time or very little.  And both scenarios can occur in the same shop.
• Because of the mix of jobs, most shops will do work with all different quoted lead-times.
• The time to do a job can also very greatly.  The same job shop can have very short and very long touch time jobs.
• Certain jobs have to run on particular machines due to precision or tolerances.
• In addition, some jobs have outside processing to be done.  Some have more than one outside process to be and some have none.
• The lead-time on outside processes will often very by the process and the vendors don't always deliver when promised.
• Yield rates may not be 100% or they may be quality issues depending on the precision and type of work.

Despite all these problems that can occur in scheduling a job shop, customers still want their part on-time. 

The good news is that there is a solution.  It's called the Velocity Scheduling System (VSS).  It's designed for highly custom job shops and machine shops where these problems not only exist but thrive.  It's not the same old thing rehashed.  It's a new solution. 

VSS is NOT software but a visual scheduling board unlike any board you've seen or used.  It can be used with your existing ERP system or with no ERP.

 To learn more about VSS, click here.