Schedule nervousness in a manufacturing system: a case study

Abstract

Schedule nervousness has received significant attention from the academics for almost three decades. However, the majority of published works on schedule nervousness have relied upon experimental results as a basis for making conclusions and there appears to be very little field-based evidence presented in the relevant literature. This paper presents a case study of schedule nervousness based on field observations in a shoe manufacturing company in Indonesia. A model to quantify nervousness is also presented. This study provides an insight that schedule nervousness is an important issue in practice and efforts to quantify nervousness, as well as to understand how it occurred, are necessary in order to reduce nervousness.

Keywords:

• Schedule nervousness
• rescheduling
• case study
• supply chain

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the anonymous referees for the constructive comments on an earlier version of this paper, and Ms Susilowati for providing pertinent data for analysis.

NYOMAN PUJAWAN obtained an undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering from Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology, Surabaya, Indonesia, an MEng in Industrial Engineering from Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand, and a PhD in Management Science from Lancaster University, UK. Prior to his academic career, he worked for a PPIC function of a multinational company. He is now a lecturer in Operations Management at the Manchester Business School. He also teaches in the Department of Industrial Engineering, Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology, Indonesia. Dr Pujawan's research interests are in the area of supply-chain strategy/management and production/operations management. His papers have been published or accepted for publication in the European Journal of Operational Research, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Operations and Quantitative Management, International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management and International Journal of Integrated Supply Management.