INTRODUCTIONAn organizations orcompanies ultimate aim will be making profits. For this to be done effectiveplanning of resources and like materials labour and technology should beimplemented. This planning to achieve maximum net profits with minimum resourcesis called operations management. Therefore operations management involvesproper planning of the utilization of resources.
Operations management includesvarious steps like production scheduling, inventory management, supply chainand logistics management etc. Production scheduling is one of the important factorsto be considered during operations management because if the productionscheduling is not done right all the other related managerial tasks likeinventory and supply chain management cannot be done in time. Production scheduling is the planning andallocation of jobs at correct time to meet the requirements like promiseddelivery time to the customer or to meet the demand of the products in themarket. This involves deciding the amount of work force needed, raw materialsto be supplied, manufacturing plants to be utilised, technology to beimplemented, and working hours to meet the production requirement on time.Consideran example of a manufacturing company which produces winter cloths.
The demandfor winter cloths increases in the period of November to march an during theother months of the year these clothes are not in demand. Knowing the increasein demand over this period and less sales during the other times of the year anoperations manager should schedule the production accordingly. To meet theincreased demand the manufacturers can produce required clothes during the lowtime of the year and stock up the products and also closer to the demand timethe production can be increased.Aneffective scheduling can be divided as two parts like what is happening insidethe company and what happens outside. Inside the company an effectivescheduling refers to the efficiency in using the available resources and howthe work force is engaged in using the resources. This can ensure improvedcapacity of the plant and maximum profit.
Outside the company scheduling shouldbe done such that the deliveries are made on time and and the logistics are runproperly. This would result in an increased customer satisfaction and in turnmore demand for the goods. Thereforeby implementing a proper scheduling a company can plan and allocate resourcesproperly and efficiently on proper timing to ensure maximum profits. Properscheduling can also ensure reduced costs and timely deliveries of the goods.The demand requirements are met on time by calculating the demands well aheadof time to ensure resources are available and production is done on time. Thiscan be done manually by a good operations manager from his experience level orcan be calculated with help of some software. As manual calculations can take alot of time to be done larger companies always prefer these predictions of thedemands to be done using software.
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PERFORMANCE MEASURES For selecting a schedule the performancemeasures are to be identified. To achievethe goals of an organisation the scheduling should agree with the managerialconcepts of the performance measures. The common performance measuresimplemented in operation scheduling are job flow time, makes pan, past due,work in process inventory, total inventory and utilization.
These performance measuresare often inter related. The amount of time invested indoing a job is k own as the job time. This includes moving time between operations, waiting timefor machines or work orders, process times and delays resulting from machinebreakdowns , component unavailability etc. Make span is the total time requiredto complete a batch of jobs. Past due is the measure of time by which a jobmissed its deadline. Work in process inventory is the list of any objects onthe make line or is in the process of being done and the total inventories isthe sum of scheduled jobs and on hand jobs. Utilization is the percentage ofwork hours effectively used by the resources.
Objectives of operations schedulingThe major objectives of operation scheduling are making maximum use of thelabour and equipment’s. It also includes making maximum profit, increasingoutput and improving the sevice level. Other objectives are meeting deliverytimes, minimizing inventory, reducing manufacturing time, minimizing productioncost, minimizing the worker costs, allocation of resources and making maximum useof plant at minimum possible cost. Types of schedulingTwo different types of scheduling are forward scheduling and backwardscheduling.
In forward operations scheduling all the tasks in a jobs arescheduled from the date when order is made. The first task of the job is scheduledand the subsequent tasks are scheduled on the scheduled completion of firsttask. Accordingly all the tasks are scheduled. In backwards operationsscheduling the operations are planned backwards from the planned delivery date.Here the last activity is scheduled first and the time of start of last task isconsidered as the time to end the previous task.
