Scheduling

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 Introduction to Scheduling

 Scheduling pertains to establishing the timing of the use of specific resources of the organization.

 Scheduling relates to the use of equipment, facilities, and human activities.

 Examples:

 Manufacturers must schedule production, which means developing schedules for workers, equipment,

purchases, maintenance, and so on.

 Hospitals must schedule admissions, surgery, nursing assignments, and support services such as meal

preparation, security, maintenance, and cleaning.

 Educational institutions must schedule classrooms, instructors and students.

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 Scheduling Operations

 Scheduling tasks are largely a function of the volume of system output. High-volume systems require approaches
substantially different from those required by jobs shops, and project scheduling requires still different
approaches.

 Design of High volume systems involves line balancing, which concerns allocating the required tasks to work
stations so that they satisfy technical (sequencing) constraints and are balanced with respect to equal work times
among stations.
 Low-volume systems (job shops) are considerably different from those of high-volume systems. Products are
made to order, and orders usually differ considerably in terms of processing requirements, materials needed,
processing time, processing sequence and setups.

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 Low-volume systems (Job shops)

Job shop usually operates on a relatively small scale. It is used when a low
volume of high variety goods or services are needed. Processing is
intermittent; work includes small jobs, each with somewhat different
processing requirements.
Because of these characteristics, Job shop scheduling is fairly complex. It
involves establishing the route or path of movement of the jobs on the
machines (Routing), calculating the minimum total processing time
(Estimating) & depicting the movement of different jobs on different
machines (Gantt Chart). The procedure we apply to minimize the total
processing time is referred as Job Sequencing.
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 Job Sequencing – Single Machine

 Sequencing is determining the order in which jobs at work centre will be processed.

 Priority Rules are simple heuristics used to select the order in which the jobs will be processed.

 FCFS – First come First serve – processing according to the order in which they arrive.
 SPT – Shortest processing time – processing according to the shortest processing time at a machine.
 EDD – Earliest due date – processing according to the earliest due date.

 Performance Measures to judge the effectiveness of any given sequence.

 Job Flow Time – the amount of time between arrival of job & finish of job.
 Make Span – total time from beginning of first job to completion of last job.

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 Job Sequencing – Multiple Machines

 In a sequencing problem, we have to determine the optimal order (or sequence) of

performing the job in such a way that the total time (or cost) is minimum.
 Processing n jobs through two machines (Johnson’s Rule): Identify the job with the
minimum processing time. If the minimum processing time is on M1, load the job

as the first job on M1. If the minimum processing time is on M2 then load the job as

the last job on M2. Repeat the above procedure for all the job.

 Managers can also use Modified Johnson’s rule to minimize the processing time for
a group of jobs to be processed on three machines or at three successive work
centers (sometimes referred to as a three-machine flow shop). It also minimizes the
total idle time at the work centers.