What makes short term scheduling of strategic importance

Efficient scheduling is the most basic and the first requirement that a profitable and modern airline has to meet. In those business, the industry develops systems in order to demand meet capacity. Also, there are variations of the model with special discounts for the earliest or for those that take the opportunity that the majority of the customers do not prefer last-minute flights, sales promotions at night, etc.

Those strategies are followed by some managers not only to set a more exact and efficient rotation and turns, also to keep the workforce connected within the service and happy.

Cyclical scheduling is one of that techniques, applied to businesses or sectors with no consistent staff needs. The main objective is to meet staffing requirements with the minimum number of workers. The basic cyclical scheduling consists on a problem in which some set of activities is to be repeated an indefinite number of times, and it is desired that the sequence be repeating.

Recibir nuevas entradas por email. It is possible to categorize different types of tools: Electronic scheduling board ESB : It provides a graphical view of all jobs currently in production. If the digital board receives data from the factory floor, it can calculate performance time automatically and issue a warning if there is a bottleneck. Order-based scheduling OBS : The tasks are scheduled on the basis of order priority.

The sequence at individual resources is determined by the overall priority of the order for which the parts are destined. Constraint-based scheduling CBS : With constraint-based scheduling tools, the bottlenecks in the line determine the schedule for the rest of the components in the system.

Discrete Event Simulation DES : A major strength is the ability to model random events and predict the domino effect one event would have on the rest of the system. Genetic algorithms : They are a new approach to scheduling and can be compared to the scientific theory of natural selection.

The procedure starts with a schedule or family of schedules. If the new child improves faster than the parents, it replaces the worst schedule. Example of Scheduling based on Finite Capacity : A production file with two operations must be scheduled.

The capacity and load of the capacity group for operations A and B will look like this: Operation A Operation B Assumptions: Forward scheduling Based on Finite Capacity Start date is October 21 Results: When planning based on finite capacity, the plan time for the operations is matched against the capacity of the capacity group.

Production file X will therefore be scheduled as follows: For operation A, the plan time is 24 hours, and the capacity is 8 hours per day. If the start date is October 21, 8 hours are available for work on the first day; 4 hours on the second day because 4 hours have already been scheduled for another operation , 7 hours on the third day because 1 hour has already been scheduled , and 5 hours on the fourth day. This means the end date will be October Hours already scheduled are also taken into account.

Operation A ends on October 24, so operation B will start on October The end date is October People: Lack of skilled people limits the system. Mental models held by people can cause behavior that becomes a constraint. Policy: A written or unwritten policy prevents the system from producing more.

TOC provides a specific methodology to eliminate or improve the constraint divided in 5 steps: Identify: Identify the current constraint the single part of the process that limits the rate at which the goal is achieved. Exploit: Make quick improvements to the throughput of the constraint using existing resources i. Subordinate: Review all other activities in the process to ensure that they are aligned with and truly support the needs of the constraint.

Elevate: If the constraint still exists, consider what further actions can be taken to eliminate it from being the constraint. Repeat: Once a constraint is resolved the next constraint should immediately be addressed. This step is a reminder to never become complacent. Once we have indentified our constraint or bottleneck, there are several techniques for dealing with it: Increasing capacity of the constraint.

This may require a capital investment or more resources such us people or machines. Ensuring skilled workers are available to ensure full operations and maintenance of the works center or weakest links causing the constraint. Developing different routines or subcontracting. Moving inspections to a position just before the bottleneck in order to avoid bigger or potential constraints.

Scheduling throughput to match the capacity of the bottleneck. Scheduling repetitive facilities Repetitive production is going to meet also scheduling goals, that is to say that repetitive facilities have to be designed in order to satisfy customer demands, lower inventory investment, reduce batch size, and utilize equipment and processes. The use of level material gives different advantages as: Lower inventories that releases capital for other uses.

Faster product throughout. Improved product quality conducted by improved components. Reduce facility size requirements.

Improved communication between workers due to their closer location on the factory. Smoother production processes. A repetitive type of manufacturing environment has the following characteristics: Mass production with speed and high throughput.

Item produced are generic in nature. Item produced are not linked to a particular production order and are normally made to stock for distribution through warehouses and sales channels. Supports rate based scheduling which includes setup and changeover time as well as maintenance scheduling. Cluster of work centers are grouped into assembly lines. Scheduling services Manufacturing scheduling and repetitive manufacturing explained before are completely different than service scheduling.

The emphasis in service has to be focused on staff levels instead of machines or materials. In order to study properly how services can be scheduled, there are some practical examples: Hospitals : That are configured as job shops. As studied previously, we can define job shops as a kind of handling job production on small manufacturing systems focused on custom or semi-custom processes on small or medium size customer orders.

A characteristic of that job shop is the shift between jobs when the order or the job is completed. Hospital management and scheduling is more complex and follows priority systems as First Come, First Served on emergencies combined with scheduled products as surgeries or regular medical attendance. Banks : Workforce in a bank is cross trained in order to meet occasional demand excesses.

That is to say, at banks regular officers can provide a wide range of services from loan services to insurance policies. Airlines : Flight industry has experienced a huge change last decade with low-cost airlines and lately with the price reduction response of the regular airlines. Those services vary from emergency lines, mail-order business to telephone operations.

Normally those jobs do not require very skilled labor so flexibility and part-time contracts are important on that sector. To solve possible problem of that rotation, most companies use computerized scheduling systems. On that industry, demand is very relative and it has to meet the workforce needs to reach the capacity. Demand Management : Best performed services are those that match perfectly demand and capacity.

It could be handled with: Reservations, as hotels and some restaurants. Appointments, as medical services. First come, first served, as retail services or restaurants In those business, the industry develops systems in order to demand meet capacity. Capacity has to be adapted with changes in full time, part-time or temporary staff to adjust during certain periods.

Some problems may be solved with overstaffing but it implies extra costs. Also insufficient capacity could imply a lower level of attention to customer needs and therefore a lack of perceived quality. Capacity management activities include: Monitoring, analyzing, tuning, and implementing necessary changes in resource utilization.

Managing demand for computing resources, which requires an understanding of business priorities. Modeling to simulate infrastructure performance and understand future resource needs. Nevertheless, airlines prefer delays and cancellations over diversions since the later are more costly.

Diversions imply moving the aircraft to another airport that is not expected to have bad weather. Short term scheduling concerns the allocation of limited resources to tasks overtime.

In the case of airlines can be translated in keeping flights as smoothly as possible in spite of disruptions using mathematical scheduling models. The objective of short-term scheduling is to allocate and prioritize demand, matching daily and hourly requirements to specific personnel and equipment.

A good scheduling approach should be simple, clear, easily understood, easy to carry out, flexible and realistic. The competitive advantage of many firms may come from their flexibility to make last minute adjustments. According to Heizner, the strategic importance of short term scheduling is clear:. This means greater use of assets and hence greater capacity per dollar invested, which in turn, lower cost.

Until know we have been only talking about airlines, nevertheless companies in any industry may have to deal with this issues like manufacturing, mining or a supermarket. Companies, especially airlines, should be able to recover from disruptions that arise on the day of operations when there are limited opportunities in the operational time frame to save costs, because most of the costs have been spent.

There is nothing they can do to save money, so they have to do the best out of the money they already have spent. What are the key areas to look at when focusing on improving operational efficiency?

A schedule should be robust. Robustness means that if something happens on the day of operations is it possible to recover from that disruption without throwing that schedule away and thus spending more money trying to cover the flight, gap, etc. Scheduling deals with the timing of operations. A sequence of decisions affects scheduling during the whole production process. Seeing the graph in slide 5 you will be able to understand the different stages of scheduling within an organization and the decisions taken.

To help address the difficulties inherent in scheduling, we can categorize scheduling techniques as:. Forward: Starts the schedule as soon as the job requirements are known. Jobs are performed to customer order, and delivery is requested as soon as possible. Backward: Begins with the due date, scheduling the final operation first. The resources necessary to accomplish the schedule may not exist. Process focus facilities are compound of high variety and low volume systems manufacturing and service organizations in which products are made to order.

To run a facility in a balanced and efficient manner, the manager needs a production planning and control system. This system should:.