Operations Management: Sustainability and Supply Chain Management, Twelfth Edition

Scheduling Process-Focused Facilities

Process-focused facilities (also known as intermittent, or job-shop, facilities) are common in high-variety, low-volume manufacturing and service organizations. These facilities produce make-to-order products or services and include everything from auto repair garages and hospitals to beauty salons. The production items themselves differ considerably, as do the talents, material, and equipment required to make them. Scheduling requires that the sequence of work (its routing), time required for each item, and the capacity and availability of each work center be known. The variety of products and unique requirements means that scheduling is often complex. In this section we look at some of the tools available ...