ABSTRACT
Overview Ideally, products and services should be available when and where they are required by customers. In Chapter 9 we discussed a system’s capacity and, in particular, its available capacity. Also, in Chapter 9 and Figure 9.1 we discussed the historical relationship between the concept of economy of scale and minimum per unit cost based on production volume. In this discusson it was also mentioned that former productive systems relied on large unit volumes to standardize product or service production. is enabled dedicated process workflows, based on the technology that was available at that time, to operate at a minimum cost. Production paradigms have changed over the past several decades due to the development of new tools, methods, and concepts that have enabled jobs to be run at a lower cost, and hence more often. is has effectively reduced the production volumes required to achieve a minimum per unit cost. As a result, system flexibility has been increased, allowing production schedules to change more quickly in response to demand variations. In fact, some production systems have moved closer to a concept of selfservice or service on demand to satisfy niche markets based on changing customer needs and values. For example, customers “help themselves” to electronic products or services, such as online movies, or self-order when they check in at an airport or check out products at Home Depot or grocery stores. In these situations, customers schedule their services based on a system’s queuing characteristics and service
design. As technology becomes more sophisticated, systems that schedule the production of complex products and services will continue to evolve in ways that are similar to those found in leading-edge service industries, in which customers “pull” products or services as needed from the system. However, most organizations use push scheduling systems in which products are scheduled at a cumulative lead time. At an extreme, are those organizations that use either extremely flexible or a selfservice scheduling strategy. e question we will attempt to answer in this chapter is: How can current scheduling tools, methods, and strategies be applied to increase an organization’s competitiveness?
