Production Planning & Control

The Management of Operations

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A framework for studying practical production

scheduling

Rodrigo Romero-Silva, Javier Santos & Margarita Hurtado

To cite this article: Rodrigo Romero-Silva, Javier Santos & Margarita Hurtado (2015) A framework
for studying practical production scheduling, Production Planning & Control, 26:6, 438-450, DOI:
10.1080/09537287.2014.919413

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Published online: 20 May 2014.

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Production Planning & Control, 2015
Vol. 26, No. 6, 438–450, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2014.919413

A framework for studying practical production scheduling

Rodrigo Romero-Silvaa*, Javier Santosb and Margarita Hurtadoa
a
Faculty of Engineering, Universidad Panamericana, Augusto Rodin 498, Insurgentes Mixcoac, Mexico City 03920, Mexico;
b
Industrial Management, Tecnun, San Sebastian, Spain
(Received 31 July 2013; accepted 22 April 2014)

The aim of this paper is to present what we believe are the most relevant findings and results regarding practical scheduling
in order to define practical production scheduling and create a framework that helps researchers to study the various topics
that fall under the umbrella of practical production scheduling and to identify the current state of knowledge for each topic.
Studies from different fields were analysed and included in this paper, contributing significant knowledge to build a
definition of practical production scheduling. Finally, we discuss the applicability that scheduling, as a task, could have in
real companies.
Keywords: human factors; scheduling support systems; scheduling; applications; review

1. Introduction
Most of the research in the field of production schedul-
ing has been focused on the theoretical perspective, as
the studies by Reisman, Kumar, and Motwani (1997)
and Halsall, Muhlemann, and Price (1994) show. Never-
theless, a gap between theoretical proposals and their
actual use in real production settings has been identified
by a number of papers (Buxey 1989; McKay, Safayeni,
and Buzacott 1988; McKay and Wiers 1999; Stoop and
Wiers 1996; Wiers 1997). Those papers primarily attri-
bute the existence of the gap to the fact that theoretical
proposals make a series of assumptions that do not corre-
spond to the actual scheduling task that production units
must solve, thereby hindering the usefulness of the theo-
retical proposals.
In order to have a better understanding of the actual
scheduling process that the production units perform,
various studies have investigated the actual tasks carried
out by schedulers (Berglund and Karltun 2007; Jackson,
Wilson, and MacCarthy 2004; McKay, Safayeni, and
Buzacott 1995a). They found that schedulers are not
solely concerned with creating a solution, i.e. a schedule,
but they also have the very intensive task of gathering
all the information necessary for identifying all the vari-
ables that affect the scheduling task by constantly moni-
toring the production environment. Thus, the activities
that are carried out in creating a schedule could be
deemed as a process that is comprised of a series of
tasks, as McKay and Buzacott (2000) suggest.
Acknowledging the notion that the production sched-
uling task is a process, McKay and Wiers (2003) state
that ‘it is possible that many of the scheduling tools have
failed because they are the solution for a perceived prob-
lem that does not exist’; because most of the tools are
not conceived to support the scheduling task as a process
with a specific number of activities. In addition,
Crawford and Wiers (2001) note that there is a lack of a
definitive statement regarding what constitutes the sched-
uling task.
Therefore, we believe that one of the reasons why
some proposals that aim to support the scheduling task
lack applicability is the fact that there is not a generally
accepted definition of what constitutes the scheduling
task that is actually carried out in production plants, i.e.
practical production scheduling.
Furthermore, the study of theoretical scheduling has
been very prolific in part because all the aspects of the
topic have been clearly identified and categorised since
Conway, Maxwell, and Miller (1967) defined the field
of scheduling. Evidence of the solid framework that
exists for studying the topic of scheduling from a
theoretical approach is the number of reviews about the
state-of-the-art of different aspects of theoretical
scheduling (Allahverdi et al. 2008; Bagchi, Gupta, and
Sriskandarajah 2006; Graham et al. 1979; Mendez et al.
2006; Potts and Kovalyov 2000; Ribas, Leisten, and
Framiñan 2010; Sen, Sulek, and Dileepan 2003;
Vallada, Ruiz, and Minella 2008). A similarly solid
framework, however, does not exist for the practical
approach to the field of scheduling.
Thus, the purpose of this paper is to define a frame-
work for studying the practical aspect of production

*Corresponding author. Email: rromeros@up.edu.mx

© 2014 Taylor & Francis

 Production Planning & Control
scheduling by identifying the most relevant topics in
practical scheduling that have been cited in the literature
and to propose an exact definition of what constitutes
practical production scheduling. This definition could
help practitioners in the field of scheduling to define
their studies’ scope, stating whether the study intends to
cover the entire scheduling task or just one of its activi-
ties or components. Furthermore, after proposing our
definition we analyse the current state of knowledge for
each topic that can be studied in the field of practical
scheduling.
To meet these aims we will begin with a review of
some of the most relevant findings from the various
fields concerning practical scheduling so we can subse-
quently synthesise those findings and propose the frame-
work.
2. Relevant studies on practical production
scheduling
As there is not an established notion or use of the term
‘practical scheduling’, searching for papers on the practi-
cal aspect of production scheduling proves a difficult
task. In our search for papers containing the topic ‘prac-
tical scheduling’, we found that the studies using this
term, e.g. Olsen (1999), Lin, Fan, and Loiacono (2004),
Hoitomt, Luh, and Pattipati (1993), proposed a technique
for solving the scheduling problem, considered solely as
a combinatorial problem. Although the techniques were
applicable to a specific practical problem, they did not
address the topic of the real-world production scheduling
task. Consequently, the search for previous work tackling
the topic of practical production scheduling was done by
looking for papers with topics such as ‘production’ and
‘scheduling’. These papers were also used to find further
relevant studies, both by searching for the works cited
within the papers and by looking for other works that
cited these papers.
After conducting this search we found that most of
the efforts that have studied practical scheduling can be
characterised as multidisciplinary studies, as they present
techniques and results that can be related to the fields of
Operations Management, Human Factors and Artificial
Intelligence.
Investigations concerned with studying practical pro-
duction scheduling have concentrated primarily on two
topics, namely, the physical and mental tasks carried out
by the scheduler in actual scheduling operations, and the
implementation and design of scheduling support sys-
tems. Both approaches have delivered similar conclu-
sions about what constitutes the task of practical
scheduling.
Studies like the ones presented by McKay, Safayeni,
and Buzacott (1995a), Jackson, Wilson, and MacCarthy
(2004), Berglund and Karltun (2007) and MacCarthy,
439
Wilson, and Crawford (2001) recognise that the human
scheduler has more tasks than the resource allocation. It
appears that one of the main activities that is common to
all human schedulers is the collection, integration and
analysis of information, which schedulers carry out con-
stantly in order to identify the state of the system, detect
possible disruptions and take actions accordingly. This
activity was presented in a modified decision ladder used
to model a human scheduler task (Sanderson 1991).
Moreover, these studies mention that the scope of analy-
sis and decision is not only concerned with the current
state of the system but also with possible future states.
Researches investigating the requirements and func-
tionalities of scheduling support systems have presented
complementary conclusions from the previously cited
ones. For instance, Fox and Smith (1984) state that
schedule construction can be defined as a constraint-
directed activity where ‘constraints must be selectively
relaxed and the problem solving strategy must be one
of finding a solution that best satisfies the constraints’,
a finding that McKay and Buzacott (2000) also cite.
According to Hvolby and Steger-Jensen (2010), this
notion of schedule construction as a constraint-directed
activity seems to have had an impact on the develop-
ment and functionalities of some commercial software
for scheduling support (e.g. Advanced Planning and
Scheduling Systems).
Szelke and Kerr (1994), in a review of existing
knowledge-based techniques for reactive scheduling, as
well as other studies (Bharadwaj, Vinze, and Sen 1994;
Henning and Cerdá 2000; Novas and Henning 2010;
Raheja and Subramaniam 2002), have found that the
inherent presence of uncertainties on the shop floor cre-
ate the need to constantly adjust schedules through oper-
ational control. Hence, reactive scheduling is considered
to be a complement to predictive scheduling.
Finally, a paper that studied the requirements of a
production scheduling system (Framinan and Ruiz 2010)
state that such systems should include support for a
number of activities, including the following: the moni-
toring and execution of the planned schedules; an accu-
rate representation of model of the shop floor, including
all its constraints; a suitable technique for solving the
problem of schedule generation, i.e. the algorithm; an
evaluation of the solution proposed, which will have to
satisfy all constraints to be feasible; the ability to be
reactive and respond to events that could prevent the
schedule completion or feasibility; capacity analysis; and
a capability to integrate with various existing information
systems within the company. The list of those activities
could be of help to define what constitutes the produc-
tion scheduling task.
Therefore, practical scheduling is a dynamic activity
where information collection and constant monitoring
occur before and during the generation and execution of
440 R. Romero-Silva et al.
the schedule. In addition, a variety of papers support the
results of the previously cited works (Aytug et al. 2005;
McKay and Wiers 2003; Szelke and Markus 1994; Van
Wezel, Jorna, and Mietus 1996).
2.1. Conceptualisations of scheduling
To our knowledge, there are three complementary con-
ceptualisations of what constitutes the task of practical
production scheduling. The first one is the classical
approach that considers the task of scheduling only as
the scheduling problem, that is, the generation of a sche-
dule through a method that allocates resources to the
operations that need to be performed in order to com-
plete a set of jobs given a set of constraints and a certain
performance measure that is to be met by completing the
schedule. This scheduling problem is normally seen as a
combinatorial problem, i.e. finding the best solution, or
at least a ‘good’ solution, out of all the possible ones.
Examples of general methods used to solve the schedul-
ing problem can be found in Morton and Pentico (1993)
and Pinedo (2008).
This classical conceptualisation of scheduling is a
static one, since it assumes that the status of the manu-
facturing system, i.e. jobs, resources and constraints, will
not be modified. Since the nature of the production func-
tion is generally a dynamic one, there is a constant need
to update the schedules that have already been built in
order to acknowledge the changes and to build feasible
replacement schedules.
The second conceptualisation of practical scheduling
is seeing the task of scheduling as a reactive one, where
schedules are constantly updated. This task of updating
schedules is called ‘rescheduling’. Under this notion, the
scheduling task becomes dynamic, where the manufac-
turing system’s status is constantly monitored and where
changes in the schedule are made when relevant events
occur.
A more complete explanation of the topic of resched-
uling can be found in the paper by Vieira, Herrmann,
and Lin (2003), where they propose a framework for
understanding the various topics covered by previous
studies concerned with the topic of rescheduling.
Acknowledging the dynamic nature of the practical
production schedule, both Herrmann (2006) and Meystel
(2006) have proposed a third conceptualisation of the
scheduling task which conceives the scheduling task as a
type of control activity. Herrmann represents practical
production scheduling as a feedback control system and
Meystel represents it as an intelligent control system with
an elementary loop of functioning. Both try to capture the
iterative nature of the scheduling task by incorporating
feedback loops. Interestingly, Herrmann does not include
the sensor element of a typical feedback control system
(Doyle, Francis, and Tannenbaum 2009), stating that this
element or activity could be difficult to measure and track
in the case of the scheduling task.
Despite the fact that the scheduling field is defined
by the classical notion that scheduling is nothing more
than the activity undertaken to solve the scheduling
problem, whether it is in a static or dynamic environ-
ment – that is, whether rescheduling is required or not –
various authors, as we have noted, state that practical
production scheduling is also comprised of another set of
activities. Therefore, we believe that there is more than
adequate knowledge about practical production schedul-
ing to enable the proposal of a definition of what exactly
constitutes the scheduling task in real production envi-
ronments.
3. Practical scheduling framework
As Herrmann suggested, a feedback control system can
be used to represent the scheduling task, with the addi-
tional characteristic of being concerned with anticipating
future events and making the necessary changes in the
system to fulfil current and future goals and not only
being concerned with the current state of the system.
A feedback control system is comprised of three
components, namely, the Controller, the System and the
Sensor (Figure 1) and six input and output signals – that
is, a reference or command input, a sensor output, an
actuating signal or plant input, external disturbances,
plant output and measured signal, and sensor noise
(Doyle, Francis, and Tannenbaum 2009).
In the scheduling task, the controller is the schedule
construction/update activity, while the system is the man-
ufacturing environment and the sensor monitors the state
of the manufacturing environment. A brief description of
the three basic components involved in the production
scheduling task and their inputs and outputs will be
given in the next section. A diagram of the proposed
dynamics and components of the scheduling task is
shown in Figure 2. The proposed components, inputs
and outputs of this framework have all been cited by
previous studies as activities involved in the scheduling
process.
3.1. Manufacturing environment
The manufacturing environment is the actual production
system that the scheduler is trying to schedule. The com-
bination of the production environment and the schedul-
ing goal is what is normally defined as the scheduling
problem. There are three elements that constitute the pro-
duction environment (Graham et al. 1979), namely, the
number of jobs, the machine environment and the set of
constraints.
Jobs can be described by the number of operations
that are needed for the job to be completed, the
 Production Planning & Control 441

Disturbances

System output and

Reference or Actuating signal or measured signal
Controller System
command input system input

Sensor
Sensor output

Sensor noise

Figure 1. Basic feedback control system.

Schedule
construction/update
knowledge
Disturbances
Actual
manufacturing
Production environment
Scheduling goals Schedule schedule
Manufacturing and job status
construction/
update environment
Incoming jobs

Monitoring
Manufacturing Performance
environment status measures,
perception indicators and
collected data

Representation Knowledge of
of manufacturing relevant changes
environment

Figure 2. Proposed dynamics of the production scheduling task.

associated processing time and their priority or weight.
At the same time, a machine environment is commonly
described by the number of machines that can process
particular operations, as well as by the general routing
configuration of the machine environment, e.g. single
machine, flow shop and job shop.
The set of constraints in the production
environment are the elements that frequently describe
the specific characteristics of the jobs and the machine
environment. Furthermore, another set of constraints is
present in the scheduling task. This additional set of
constraints comes from the elements of the production
schedule, which limit the possible schedules that can
be generated.
3.1.1. Manufacturing environment inputs
3.1.1.1. Production schedule. The result of the schedule
generation or update activity will be the production sche-
dule, which has all the instructions that need to be
carried out in the manufacturing environment in order to
fulfil the scheduling goals. In a production schedule, a
series of resources are assigned to the particular opera-
tions that make up a job, as well as time allocations or a
sequencing order for the operations. Both the assign-
ments and sequences for the operations will affect the
actual state of the manufacturing environment, and both
can have their associated constraints.
Depending on the magnitude of the change in the
status of the manufacturing environment or in the num-
ber and importance of the incoming jobs, the resource
assignments and time allocations will be applied to the
complete set of resources or only to a subset of the
resources.
Once the scheduler generates the schedule, it needs
to be implemented. Due to assorted disturbances, the
schedule is not always implemented in the manufacturing
environment exactly as designed, resulting in a deviation
between the expected performance measures and the
actual performance measures.
442 R. Romero-Silva et al.
3.1.1.2. Disturbances. These are factors such as
breakdowns, programmed maintenance stoppages or
operator processing mistakes that can prevent the correct
completion of the schedule in the production environ-
ment. These disturbances do not make up the manufac-
turing environment, but the scheduler can expect to have
to deal with them in the course of the production run.
Disturbances will affect the current status of the manu-
facturing environment and could lead to the creation of
new constraints or a change on existing constraints.
3.1.2. Manufacturing environment outputs
3.1.2.1. Actual manufacturing environment and job sta-
tus. This is the output of the practical production sched-
uling after following the instructions in the schedule,
regardless of whether the schedule has been carried out
perfectly or there have been unexpected changes, and
after being affected by the disturbances. It represents the
actual state of the jobs, resources and constraints.
3.1.2.2. Performance measures, indicators and collected
data. These indicators are the measurements taken in the
factory in order to collect information about the status of
the manufacturing environment, as well as information
about the completed or pending jobs. With this feedback
the monitor can know whether a specific operation on a
specific machine has been completed, whether a particular
resource is available or whether a constraint has appeared,
among many other things. Not all of these data will be use-
ful, and not all the data that are needed is collected.
3.2. Schedule construction/update activity
This is the task directly involved in building the produc-
tion schedule. The importance of many of its inputs has
already been described, although we should note that
both the knowledge that the scheduler has about tech-
niques for generating or updating schedules and the qual-
ity of the scheduler’s representation of the manufacturing
environment are constrained by the capacity that the
scheduler has to model complex systems and process
complex decisions and to store relevant information. In
the case of human schedulers, their mental ability is a
very important constraint in generating or updating
schedules.
In this activity, deciding whether to update a sche-
dule or generate a completely new schedule will depend
on whether or not the changes in the perceived status of
the production environment affect the fulfilment of the
scheduling goals. A detailed study of the decision pro-
cess carried out in this activity can be found in the work
by Sanderson (1991) and Jorna (2006). This is where the
scheduler chooses and applies what he perceives to be
the best technique from his knowledge to generate or
update the schedule.
3.2.1. Schedule construction/update inputs
3.2.1.1. Scheduling goals. These are the principal objec-
tives or goals of the scheduling task, e.g. minimising the
number of tardy jobs, maximising resource utilisation,
maximising the throughput, etc. This input determines
whether the production results are deemed satisfactory.
3.2.1.2. Incoming jobs. These are jobs that have not
been already considered in the schedule, that is, they
have not yet been assigned to a resource or they have
not been allocated a time in a particular resource or
given a sequence. This input is relevant regardless of
whether the company has a specific order release
activity.
3.2.1.3. Schedule construction/update knowledge. This
refers to the amount of relevant knowledge that the sche-
dule generator has about the techniques used to build
feasible schedules and that can attain the desired com-
pany goals. Furthermore, the amount and relevance of
this knowledge depends partly on the techniques avail-
able for solving the various instances of scheduling prob-
lems proposed in the literature and partly on the
experience of the scheduler.
3.2.1.4. Representation of the manufacturing environ-
ment. The representation is the abstraction that the
scheduler has about the real manufacturing environment.
If the scheduler is human, the representation would be a
mental model of the various components of the manufac-
turing environment and the scheduling constraints. As in
any task that works with models of real systems, the rep-
resentation needs to resemble the real manufacturing
environment as much as possible so that it is able to cor-
rectly account for all the components involved in the
production process. More on this topic can be found in
Hommel (2006) and Hoc (2006). A correct representa-
tion of the actual manufacturing environment and its
three elements is a key factor in accurately perceiving
the state of the manufacturing environment by knowing
what elements should be monitored and be able to create
feasible schedules.
3.2.1.5. Manufacturing environment status perception.
This factor is the output of the monitoring activity and it
is the scheduler’s idea of the status of the production
environment and informs the generating of the schedule.
The more dissimilar the perception and the reality are,
the less likely it is that the production schedule will be
feasible and the desired goals will be attained.
 Production Planning & Control
3.2.1.6. Production schedule. The production schedule is
both an input to and an output of the schedule generation
activity. It is an input because in order to update a sche-
dule that has been deemed irrelevant due to disturbances
or incoming jobs, the scheduler needs the data from the
previous schedule so the production is only being
‘rescheduled’ instead of having to generate a completely
new schedule.
3.2.2. Schedule construction/update outputs
3.2.2.1. Production schedule. Sections 3.1.1.1 and
3.2.1.6.
3.3. Monitoring activity
A filtering of information occurs in this activity, where
all the irrelevant measurements and indicators are
discarded based on the knowledge of relevant changes
and the monitor’s representation of the manufacturing
environment so that only the important measurements
and indicators are considered. If the agent performing
the monitoring activity is a human, it will generally be
the scheduler, making it more difficult to differentiate the
monitoring activity from the schedule generation/
update activity. Nevertheless, they are different activities
and so should be studied and analysed separately.
3.3.1. Monitoring activity inputs
3.3.1.1. Knowledge of relevant changes. This input
refers to the amount of knowledge that the monitor
has about the possible values that the measurements
and indicators can have that could help to identify
important changes in the status of the production envi-
ronment which can cause a disruption in the correct
completion of the schedule. By knowing what changes
might trigger a schedule generation or update, the
scheduler can take action at the correct moment in
time and with the required scope.
3.3.1.2. Performance measures, indicators and collected
data. Section 3.1.2.2.
3.3.1.3. Representation of the manufacturing environ-
ment. Section 3.2.1.4.
3.3.2. Monitoring activity outputs
3.3.2.1. Manufacturing environment status perception.
Section 3.2.1.5.
443
3.4. Previous research concerned with the components,
inputs and outputs of the scheduling task
Research has already been conducted on some of the
components, inputs and outputs involved in the dynam-
ics of the scheduling task. The most commonly studied
topics have been production schedule generation tech-
niques from an operational research approach and the
schedule generation/update activity from a cognitive task
analysis approach (Crawford and Wiers 2001). Studies
looking into the complete dynamics of the scheduling
task and the impact that each element has on the final
resulting performance of the schedule have not yet been
carried out, to the best of our knowledge.
Table 1 presents a brief review of some of the papers
that address the different elements of practical production
scheduling and a succinct description of their findings
and possible lines of future research.
4. Discussion
The proposed dynamics of practical production schedul-
ing can be used as a framework for studying the differ-
ent approaches taken when addressing the scheduling
field and the various topics that can be studied within
production scheduling.
The classical scheduling approach is contained in this
framework through the incorporation of scheduling prob-
lem resolution techniques in the scheduling generation or
update activity; nevertheless, this proposed dynamic
expands the notion of what constitutes production sched-
uling by incorporating other activities, found by a num-
ber of authors, that are carried out in real-life scheduling
settings. Moreover, we believe that this framework is
complementary to the framework proposed by Vieira,
Herrmann, and Lin (2003) since the conceptualisation of
practical production scheduling proposed in this paper
considers the rescheduling task to be equivalent to the
iterative nature of practical scheduling. All rescheduling
environments and methods proposed by Vieira,
Herrmann and Lin could be represented within the
practical scheduling dynamics shown in Figure 2.
There may be some doubt regarding the ability of
the proposal of this paper to model the dynamic strategy
for rescheduling where no schedule (or a subset of a
schedule) is generated or updated, contrary to the predic-
tive-reactive strategy. Nevertheless, the procedure of
these dynamic techniques, e.g. dispatching rules, has the
same mechanism as the procedure described in this
paper. Moreover, although no specific time allocations
are made to generate a schedule, sequences of job pro-
cessing in the resources are defined, along with resource
assignments. Additionally, it is necessary to monitor the
status of the manufacturing environment even for some
444 R. Romero-Silva et al.
Table 1. Framework for studying the topic of practical production scheduling.
Practical scheduling
topic Papers studying the topic
Manufacturing Wiers and Van der Schaaf (1997), Liebowitz and
environment Potter (1995), Hayes and Wheelwright (1979),
Kemppainen, Vepsäläinen, and Tinnilä (2008), Fox
and Smith (1984), Kjellsdotter (2012)
Production schedule Bidot et al. (2009), Morton and Pentico (1993),
Pinedo (2008), Blackstone, Phillips, and Hogg
(1982), Mizrak and Bayhan (2006), Conway,
Maxwell, and Miller (1967), Szelke and Kerr (1994),
Kempf et al. (2000), Hall and Posner (2004)
Scheduling goals Stoop and Wiers (1996), Gary et al. (1995), Graham
et al. (1979), Pinedo (2008), Liebowitz and Potter
(1995)
Incoming jobs Bergamaschi et al. (1997), Sabuncuoglu and
Karapınar (1999), Cigolini, Perona, and Portioli
(1998)
Schedule Jackson, Wilson and MacCarthy (2004), Sanderson
construction/ (1991), Kiewiet, Jorna, and Van Wezel (2005), Hori
update knowledge et al. (1995), Van Wezel, Jorna, and Mietus (1996)
Representation of Trentesaux, Moray, and Tahon (1998), Tacquard and
the manufacturing Martineau (2001), Guinet (1990), Liu (1993), Van
environment Wezel and Jorna (1999), Novas and Henning (2010),
Kiewiet, Jorna, and Van Wezel (2005), Bidot et al.
(2009), Szelke and Kerr (1994), Fox and Smith
(1984), Hildum (1994), Van Wezel (2006), Schmidt
(1996)
Manufacturing Berglund and Karltun (2007), Mckay, Safayeni, and
environment Buzacott (1995a)
status perception
Schedule Sanderson (1991), Trentesaux, Moray, and Tahon
construction/ (1998), Jackson, Wilson, and MacCarthy (2004),
update activity Mckay, Safayeni, and Buzacott (1995a), Mckay and
Buzacott (2000), Dutton (1964), Kiewiet, Jorna, and
Van Wezel (2005)
Findings and possible lines of future research
Various factors that are relevant for defining a
manufacturing environment and that should thus be
taken into consideration in all the elements of the
scheduling task have been described. Based on those
relevant factors, classifications have been made to
define the types of manufacturing environments.
Some of the papers concerned with identifying those
factors are also concerned with the modelling of such
environments
There are various approaches used to generate a
schedule, such as dispatching rules, algorithms,
heuristics or constraint-based problems, which try to
solve the scheduling problem, considering a wide
range of theoretical manufacturing environments, with
a proactive, reactive or mixed strategy. The topic of
the actual implementation of the production schedule
into the manufacturing environment has not been
studied, neither has the impact that the gap between
the expected and the real schedule can create on the
actual performance of the company
More than one goal is normally sought; some of
those goals could be focused on a wider scope than
solely the optimisation of the schedule. It can be an
output of other organisational functions, such as a
higher level of planning
Most of the studies on this topic are centred on
releasing jobs to the job shop in order to control the
shop’s workload, among other objectives. This is
another element of the scheduling task that can be an
output of other organisational function, such as an
MRP. The integration among different levels of
planning, that is, hierarchical planning, is a topic that
has been studied by a number of authors (McKay,
Safayeni, and Buzacott 1995b)
Interestingly, it has been discovered that the
knowledge contained in the minds of schedulers
solving the same scheduling problem differs as not all
schedulers consider the same information to be
relevant; thus, when eliciting knowledge from experts
it would be desirable to acquire it from different
sources
Modelling the manufacturing environment is the
primary concern of these papers; as a consequence,
they propose different tools to help in the modelling
of the system. To our knowledge, there is no study
which has compared the actual system against the
model used in the scheduling task and how that gap
can affect the schedule’s performance
Data coming from the monitoring activity is not
always trusted, so decisions are taken with incomplete
data on the actual status of the manufacturing
environment. Some decisions are taken with a certain
degree of intuition, so not all factors that are included
in all decisions can always be mapped
The process of generating a schedule by a human
uses the general strategy of sorting the important data
in order to further assess or identify the status of the
system (present and future) and then search for
simple or common solutions to attain the desired
(Continued)
 Production Planning & Control 445

Table 1. (Continued).
Practical scheduling
topic Papers studying the topic Findings and possible lines of future research
goals. If a simple solution does not exist, a more
explicit solution is developed. A major constraint in
the process of generating a schedule is the mental
capacity of the human scheduler and the knowledge
accumulated by the scheduler through work
experience
Disturbances Stoop and Wiers (1996), Aytug et al. (2005), It can be expected in most manufacturing
Ouelhadj and Petrovic (2009) environments a constant change in the values of
variables such as capacity, processing of jobs or data
availability. The frequency at which every type of
disturbance occurs and the nature and magnitude of
the impact that they cause in the performance or
feasibility of the schedule has yet to be investigated
Actual Research on the result of there being a gap between
manufacturing the actual status of the manufacturing environment
environment and and the perceived status of the manufacturing
job status environment has yet to be done. Such research will
be very useful for knowing the importance of
collecting accurate information
Performance Cowling and Johansson (2002), Vieira, Herrmann, Incorporating real-time information can be useful for
measures, and Lin (2003) improving the performance of the schedule by
indicators and repairing or updating it. To our knowledge, the exact
collected data amount of information that schedulers receive before
carrying out the monitoring activity has not been
investigated
Knowledge of Jackson, Wilson, and MacCarthy (2004), Aytug et al. Human schedulers have a more comprehensive
relevant changes (2005), Ouelhadj and Petrovic (2009) awareness of the events that could compromise a
schedule’s being completed with the expected
performance, and thus it is difficult to substitute them
with expert or decision support systems that decide
autonomously whether an event is relevant or not,
unless the manufacturing environment has very
constant characteristics such that a completely
predictive scheduling approach can be used
Monitoring Berglund and Karltun (2007), Berglund and Guinery Since formal systems of data update and acquisition
(2008), Jackson, Wilson, and MacCarthy (2004), do not always contain all the necessary data, human
Mckay, Safayeni, and Buzacott (1995a) schedulers complete the monitoring activity by
contacting multiple sources of information, which, in
most cases, are other humans. Therefore, this activity
is greatly influenced by the social skills of the
scheduler

of the most basic of these methods, such as SPT, EDD
and FIFO.
Another consideration is the inclusion of the order
release or job dispatching activity as a task of practical
production scheduling, as Herrmann (2006) did. The
decision to include the order release activity into the
scheduling task is a conceptual one. Although it does
not affect our proposal, it could fit seamlessly into our
framework as the first activity done in the scheduling
task by considering the incoming jobs as an output of
the order release activity.
Most of the studies in practical production scheduling
have been concerned with investigating the real process
that human schedulers follow in order to complete the
scheduling task, since various studies have discovered
the activities and decision processes that the schedulers
carry out, as well as the factors that they take into con-
sideration when taking a specific action or decision. A
lot of research has also been done on the modelling of
manufacturing environments due to the close relation
that the modelling has with the development of computa-
tional support systems for scheduling. Nevertheless, vari-
ous topics that are important to a complete
understanding of practical production scheduling remain
unstudied.
We believe that the topic of the context dependency
or independency of the scheduling task is a topic that
has not been studied in sufficient depth, as Crawford and
446 R. Romero-Silva et al.
Wiers (2001) point out, being that it is critical for under-
standing the nature and dynamics of the scheduling task.
In order to study whether or not production scheduling
is context dependent, research is needed on the relation
between scheduling task factors and the variables that
are present in the scheduling context, which are called
‘environmental factors’ in Crawford and Wiers (2001).
In other words, there is a need to find out whether
the variables that could define the manufacturing
environment of one production unit are directly related
to the execution of the elements that constitute the
scheduling task. For example, issues such as the
difficulty of acquiring data, the accuracy of the informa-
tion needed to attain a certain level of performance in
the scheduling task, the significance that each type of
disturbance has in deciding whether to reschedule or
repair a schedule or even the difficulties of actually car-
rying out the planned schedule on the manufacturing
floor could be solved by finding what the most important
factors that define the manufacturing environment of a
production plant are.
In addition, it is known that the complexity of the
scheduling problem as a combinatorial problem depends
on the machine environment, the number of jobs and the
constraints that are present in the problem (Pinedo
2008), but no study has been undertaken in order to try
to understand whether the scheduling problem complex-
ity is directly related to the complexity of successfully
completing the scheduling task, as previously defined in
this paper, or whether the complexity of completing the
scheduling task is influenced by the context in which the
scheduling task is carried out.
Moreover, by identifying whether or not the schedul-
ing task is context dependent, and consequently by being
able to classify those scheduling contexts or environ-
ments, more focused tools for analysing and supporting
the scheduling task can be created and greater applicabil-
ity can be found in the scheduling field.
An additional topic that could deliver a significant
advance in the understanding of the nature of the sched-
uling task is the study of the gaps among the various
levels that the schedule can have, that is, the differences
between the schedule conceived by the scheduler, the
formal schedule generated and the schedule that is actu-
ally carried out in the manufacturing plant. For example,
the real impact that disturbances have on the manufactur-
ing environment, and consequently on the performance
of the schedule, could be measured by investigating the
differences among the levels of the schedule. Moreover,
the study of the gaps among the various levels of a sche-
dule could deliver a better understanding of the effects
that could result from an inaccurate representation of the
manufacturing environment, as well as the criticality of
having accurate data.
4.1. Applicability of production scheduling in real
manufacturing environments
Despite the fact that this paper is not intended as a
review of all the topics that address practical production
scheduling, we feel that the paper would not be complete
without including the issue of the actual applicability that
scheduling has in some manufacturing companies since a
framework for studying the topic of practical production
scheduling would be pointless if practical production
scheduling were not found to be useful for the company.
There are two very relevant papers that address the
issue of the applicability of carrying out scheduling in
some companies, which is different to the applicability
that the scheduling techniques have in real-life environ-
ments (Wiers 1997). Firstly, the study by Portougal and
Robb (2000) suggests that scheduling or sequencing
would be useful only in companies where the production
cycle time is longer than the production planning period,
and that companies where this environment exists are
rare and decreasing in number. Secondly, the study by
Tenhiälä (2011) defines a relation between the production
planning environment and the level of production plan-
ning that companies use.
Tenhiälä contends that finite-loading capacity plan-
ning, which is part of the schedule construction activity,
would be more useful for companies that have a batch
process with bottleneck control and a production line
since the information availability for these planning envi-
ronments could be more complete and accurate and since
the environments that are more difficult to monitor (job
shop and batch shop) could not receive an important
increase in performance by applying more exact capacity
planning methods because of the noise that inaccurate,
incomplete and ever-changing data can create.
On this issue we agree with part of what Tenhiälä
suggests, although not with Portougal and Robb. Tenhiälä
tested the hypothesis of fit between capacity planning
level and process type among various companies and the
data collected from companies supported the hypothesis.
In a previous study (Romero, Santos, and Arcelus 2012),
some supporting evidence was found for the causes of that
fit since job shop environments were found to have a
tendency to lack precise or even general data about their
installed capacity, in contrast with production lines and
particularly batch shops.
Nevertheless, one could argue that the lack of data
in job shop environments does not directly mean that
those companies would not have use for precise data
and would not benefit from carrying out scheduling. On
the contrary, the use of a less detailed planning level
and the lack of precise data could be a symptom of the
difficulty of collecting that information, that is, of the
difficulty of conducting the monitoring activity or of
the difficulty of coping with the variability present in
 Production Planning & Control
the scheduling task as a whole, given a limited set of
companies’ capabilities.
Portougal and Robb, on the other hand, suggest that it
would not be practical to utilise a scheduling level of plan-
ning, i.e. finite capacity planning, for an environment
where all jobs could be completed on a time span shorter
than the planning period. But this situation depends
entirely on the length of the planning period decided by
management, which is also an issue in the level of shop
floor autonomy (Wiers 2009) that the company wants,
something that could not be defined correctly by manage-
ment. We also do not view the cycle time of the job pool
as being an important factor that could decide the applica-
bility of scheduling in a company given that it is a factor
that partly depends on the available capacity of the plant.
The aspect that could help determining the applicability of
scheduling in a factory is the percentage of capacity that is
normally busy, i.e. the workload. For example, for a fac-
tory that has excess capacity for all of its resources for a
normal workload, scheduling could be less relevant
because the significance of every decision may be very
small as the decisions would not have a big impact (if any)
on the performance measurements, but for a manufactur-
ing plant with used capacity nearing 100% for one (e.g.
bottleneck-constrained processes) or various resources
(e.g. a production line) every decision taken could be criti-
cal, thus increasing the scheduling task’s applicability to
the operation of that plant. Therefore, we believe that
available capacity for all resources is a more important fac-
tor for the relevance of scheduling than the relation
between the cycle time and the planning period.
As a final consideration, we believe that the task of
supporting production scheduling is not an easy one,
because it seems to depend entirely on the manufacturing
environment of the plant that possess a series of factors
that go beyond the traditional combinatorial scheduling
problem. Any company that is trying to improve their
scheduling function should focus on all the aspects of
the scheduling task described in this paper and not only
on the software or tool that provides them with a tech-
nique to generate schedules, i.e. only solving the combi-
natorial problem.
5. Conclusions
Proposals in the field of scheduling could significantly
improve their applicability by addressing a more practi-
cal notion of scheduling. This paper has tried to present
a more exact description of what practical production
scheduling is, one that is based on previous studies
regarding scheduling support systems, activities carried
out by human schedulers in real production environments
and previous conceptualisations of the scheduling task.
Furthermore, a framework to study the scheduling
task was presented by modelling all the perceived
447
components of the scheduling task as a feedback control
loop. This model included three main components: a
production environment, the activity of monitoring such
environment and the activity of actually generating the
schedule with the data previously gathered.
This proposition, which regards scheduling as a
dynamic task that is solved iteratively as conditions
change, could be useful for practitioners, as they can use
it as a framework for focusing their studies on a specific
scheduling topic and integrate the extensive knowledge
that exists about practical production scheduling into an
extended interpretation of the scheduling field.
The presentation of the framework is followed by a
discussion about the topics that could deliver interesting
results in the field of practical scheduling and about the
actual applicability of the scheduling task in real produc-
tion environments.
Finally, we believe that this paper could be useful for
practitioners who are embarking on the study of schedul-
ing, in that it offers direction in terms of the general top-
ics that have been covered in practical scheduling, the
topics that are yet to be covered and as a reference for
some of the most relevant studies in that field.
Notes on contributors
Rodrigo Romero Silva received his PhD in
Industrial Engineering in 2012 at Tecnun,
University of Navarra, Spain. Currently, he
is a lecturer and researcher at Universidad
Panamericana in Mexico City. He is also an
actual member of the National Researchers
System (SNI) with a degree of ‘Candidato’
receiving a scholarship granted by CONA-
CYT.
Javier Santos is an industrial engineer, lec-
turer and researcher at Tecnun. He received
his PhD in 2002. His research and teaching
focus is on lean manufacturing and the
environmental impact of production pro-
cesses. He has participated in 18 research
projects, published 34 scientific papers and
conducted 8 PhD Thesis. In 2006, he pub-
lished a book titled ‘Improving production
with lean Thinking’ translated to four different languages. He
has been the head of management Department at Tecnun for 9
years and dean assistance for 6 years.
Margarita Hurtado is an academician, ori-
ented towards the application of knowledge
in order to obtain positive results in organi-
sations through business training and the
higher education of young professionals.
She is an industrial engineer (Universidad
de la Sabana, Colombia) and holds a PhD
in Industrial Engineering (Universidad de
Navarra, Spain). Currently, she is the
448 R. Romero-Silva et al.

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