Coordination activities of human planners during rescheduling: case analysis and event handling procedure

Abstract

This paper addresses the process of event handling and rescheduling in manufacturing practice. Firms are confronted with many diverse events, such as new or changed orders, machine breakdowns, and material shortages. These events influence the feasibility and optimality of schedules, and thus induce rescheduling. In many manufacturing firms, schedules are created by several human planners. Coordination between them is needed to respond to events adequately. In this paper, the practice of coordination during event handling is analysed by an extensive case study. The study shows that human planners spend much time in communicating events and in negotiating rescheduling solutions. Because many events demand a quick response, the possibilities for coordination are restricted by time constraints. The paper proposes a procedure to structure the event handling process. This procedure helps a scheduler to select an appropriate response to an event by evaluating its influence on schedule feasibility and the time available for coordination and rescheduling. The use of the procedure in the case company has led to improved rescheduling performance through a reduction of scheduler interactions and increasing coordination efficiency. The procedure contributes to traditional planning frameworks and paradigms, and supports the conscious selection and use of rescheduling methods in manufacturing practice.

Keywords:

• scheduling
• distributed manufacturing control
• empirical study
• group scheduling
• human factors
• work structures
• production management
• production planning
• teamwork