Exercise 4: Short-Term SchedulingAbstractScheduling involves the timing and coordination of operations. Two kinds of scheduling commonly used are the backward and forward scheduling. Scheduling allocates plant and machinery resources, plan human resources, plan production processes and purchase materials. It employs Gantt charts, assignment methods, priority rules, critical ratio constraint, Johnson’s rule, the concept of bottlenecks and the theory of constraints. Essentially, these techniques provide reasonable trade-off between what can be attained as well as customer due dates.
IntroductionScheduling basically deals with the timing of operations. It is contingent on capacity plans, aggregate plans and master schedules. It begins with capacity planning, which involves facility and equipment acquisition. Then in the aggregate planning stage, decisions regarding the allotment of resources such as facilities, inventory, people, and outside contractors are made. The master schedule then breaks down the aggregate plan and develops an overall schedule for outputs. Finally, the capacity decisions, intermediate planning, and master schedules are translated to short-term schedules which deal with job sequences and specific assignments of personnel, materials, and machinery. (1)
SCHEDULE DESCRIPTION The following table provides a step-by-step list of the major operational and resource planning tasks undertaken by the Office of Management and Budget during the year 2000. The list comprises two main sections: Sustainability and Resources Planning. The Sustainability part provides a starting point for a planned program evaluation that has been developed for the Department of Defense’s environmental program evaluation. The Resource Planning portion covers the first five years of the program. The latter part has the following section: Quality of the programs used (e.g., the Air Force’s Office of Environmental Quality, the Defense Procurement Program, the Army’s Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, and the Department of Energy). The Sustainability part provides a starting point for a planned program evaluation that has been developed for the Department of Defense’s environmental program evaluation. (2)
The next part of the Sustainability task in the second part of the Sustainability section contains: Risks and Opportunities. These are all areas the Office of Policy Studies (OPS) evaluates during a single year as issues in the department’s fiscal year that it considers to be relevant. This section also looks at what the Office has learned of and has developed over decades, in a variety of contexts including the Department’s budget and government operations. (3)
The following list summarises key issues listed in the following sections. (4)
Note that many of other resources under the jurisdiction of the Office of Policy Studies are different than resources under the Office of Management and Budget’s jurisdiction in deciding how to allocate funds; rather, the differences have to do with other areas of the Department, such as government operations.
The Office of Quality Assurance and Coordination The Department of State’s Office of Quality Assessment and Coordination (QAC), an independent, national office of quality assurance and coordination, is the agency coordinating the evaluation, implementation, and management of the overall national quality assurance and coordination program. In August 2004 the Office of Quality Assurance and Coordination (OQA), the primary Federal agency for implementation/management of the program, received an M.D.A. from the International Council on Assessments and Measures for the Management and Management of the International System (ICIMM). According to the OQA’s Office of Quality Assurance and Coordination (OQA), over 80 percent of the programs examined by the Department have been developed in the following areas and in some instances have been adopted by the Government Accounting Office (GAO). Program descriptions and definitions of the program are provided in the OQA’s Annual Report. The OQA also evaluates some programs, including: the Marine Corps Air Forces’ (Navy), the Army Corps Air Corps Air National Guard’s (AFSC’s and Corps Air National Guard’s), the Department
SCHEDULE DESCRIPTION The following table provides a step-by-step list of the major operational and resource planning tasks undertaken by the Office of Management and Budget during the year 2000. The list comprises two main sections: Sustainability and Resources Planning. The Sustainability part provides a starting point for a planned program evaluation that has been developed for the Department of Defense’s environmental program evaluation. The Resource Planning portion covers the first five years of the program. The latter part has the following section: Quality of the programs used (e.g., the Air Force’s Office of Environmental Quality, the Defense Procurement Program, the Army’s Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, and the Department of Energy). The Sustainability part provides a starting point for a planned program evaluation that has been developed for the Department of Defense’s environmental program evaluation. (2)
The next part of the Sustainability task in the second part of the Sustainability section contains: Risks and Opportunities. These are all areas the Office of Policy Studies (OPS) evaluates during a single year as issues in the department’s fiscal year that it considers to be relevant. This section also looks at what the Office has learned of and has developed over decades, in a variety of contexts including the Department’s budget and government operations. (3)
The following list summarises key issues listed in the following sections. (4)
Note that many of other resources under the jurisdiction of the Office of Policy Studies are different than resources under the Office of Management and Budget’s jurisdiction in deciding how to allocate funds; rather, the differences have to do with other areas of the Department, such as government operations.
The Office of Quality Assurance and Coordination The Department of State’s Office of Quality Assessment and Coordination (QAC), an independent, national office of quality assurance and coordination, is the agency coordinating the evaluation, implementation, and management of the overall national quality assurance and coordination program. In August 2004 the Office of Quality Assurance and Coordination (OQA), the primary Federal agency for implementation/management of the program, received an M.D.A. from the International Council on Assessments and Measures for the Management and Management of the International System (ICIMM). According to the OQA’s Office of Quality Assurance and Coordination (OQA), over 80 percent of the programs examined by the Department have been developed in the following areas and in some instances have been adopted by the Government Accounting Office (GAO). Program descriptions and definitions of the program are provided in the OQA’s Annual Report. The OQA also evaluates some programs, including: the Marine Corps Air Forces’ (Navy), the Army Corps Air Corps Air National Guard’s (AFSC’s and Corps Air National Guard’s), the Department
Establishing the timing of the use of particular resources is the main concern of scheduling. Most jobs compete simultaneously for the same resources, and to make matters more complicated, these jobs have specific deadlines. Scheduling takes care of satisfying such requirements through (1) forward scheduling and (2) backward scheduling.
Forward scheduling begins as the job requirements are known. (1) The firm takes an order and then schedules each operation that must be completed in forward time. With forward scheduling, the firm can tell the earliest date that an order can be completed. (3) However, a setback of this approach is that is causes builds-up of WIP, and the meeting due dates is not top priority.
On the other hand, backward scheduling makes sure that the order is handed to the customer upon the deadline. It begins with the due date, scheduling the final operation first and the other job steps in reverse order. (1) the backward schedule tells when an order must be started in order to be done by a specific date.
Effective scheduling helps firms meet due dates or customers or downstream operations, minimize the flow time, minimize work-in-process inventory and minimize idle time of machine and workers. In essence, scheduling is the heart of operations management that needs to be closely monitored to address complications such as machine breakdown, absenteeism, quality problems, and shortages and accommodate sudden changes.
Significance to the Industry and to Everyday LifeScheduling entails the timing