Just in Time Inventories and Scheduling Procedures

Week 6 Guidance 

 

Chapter 11 (Just-in-Time and Lean Systems)

Video: https://youtu.be/7tchKZiIwIU

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of presenting JIT is where to start; that is, which elements to present first, and then, which order to present to remaining elements.  It is important that students understand the difference between “romantic JIT” and “pragmatic JIT” because many times students can fall into the same trap that the senior management has fallen into.   Students may also see JIT as a quick fix to many problems without realizing that there are no quick and easy solutions to these problems.  It needs to be stressed to the students that it may take years to perfect a JIT system by implementing various techniques related to machine changeovers, layout design, product simplification, quality training and preventive maintenance. 

 

Chapter 12 (Scheduling)   

   

Video: https://youtu.be/BU3RM3aBESk    

 

Scheduling techniques are designed to disaggregate the master production schedule into time-phased daily or hourly activities. A detailed production schedule must include when and where each activity must take place in order to meet the master schedule.

Scheduling involves the following major activities:

1. Short-run machine, manpower and production scheduling.

2. Short-run capacity planning.

3. Routing (determining where the work is going to be done).

4. Dispatching (issuing the order to begin work).

 

Elements of Scheduling Problems: 

 

1. Job arrival patterns (static vs. dynamic). Dynamic arrival pattern means that more jobs will arrive in the system during the time those currently in the system are being processed. In a static system, all jobs that will ever enter the system are known. Most job shops are dynamic.

2. Ratio of workers to machines (machine limited vs. labor limited environment).

3. Priority rules for scheduling.

4. Flow patterns of jobs through the plant.

Scheduling decision is based on the following critical factors:

1.       Material availability.

2.       Capacity availability (worker or machine).

3.       Bottleneck vs. non-bottleneck operations.

4.       Job priorities.

5.       Queue of work before each workstation.