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Scheduling in Your Environment

The importance of knowing where you reside in the volume - mix curve
scheduling in manufacturing plants

Scheduling in Your Environment

Stealing some verbiage from the APICS body of knowledge, there is a curve that exists from NW so SE on a graph that has product mix on the Y-axis, and volume on the X-axis. So top left has the “Low Volume, High Mix” environment, while the bottom right has the “High volume, Low mix” environment.

Where are you on the curve? Draw it out for yourself, and throw the dart!

Scheduling can be very different whether you are Engineer to order, Make to order, Assemble to order, or Make to stock. One of the great failures we have seen in our past is when a company tries to force the wrong environment on to its facility.

We can help you set up metrics for your scheduling process and make sure you are respecting the environment you need to be in. Plus using PDCA and corrective actions, make scheduling effective and fun instead of being a doomed exercise from the beginning. Talk to us to see how we can help.