© Oxford University Press 2013. All rights reserved.

Components of Scheduling
Scheduling in job shops involves:

• Assigning tasks to different machines (or work centers)

• Deciding about the sequence of processing of the job on different

machines on the basis of some priority rule (called sequencing or
prioritization)

• Planning the route of movement of the material from one department to

the other during processing (called routing)

• Issuing dispatch lists to the various work centers (called dispatching)

• Tracking the progress of various jobs scheduled and in case of delays in

the implementation of schedules, revising the schedules and expediting
the completion of certain jobs (called expediting).

© Oxford University Press 2013. All rights reserved.

Problems in the Absence of Proper
Scheduling
Delays in meeting the
due dates of High work-in-
customer orders process
inventory

Low utilization of
High average
completion ABSENCE OF workers and
time of jobs PROPER machines (high
SCHEDULING idle time)

No accurate Higher set-up time

information (overall) of
available for machines
Higher cost of
the current
production/
status of a
operations
job

© Oxford University Press 2013. All rights reserved.

 Forward & Backward Scheduling

• Forward scheduling means assigning customer

orders or jobs to various work centers based on the
approach “as early as possible”.

• Backward scheduling is a way of scheduling which

is based on the approach “as late as possible” with the
condition that the jobs are finished by their due dates
of delivery to the customer.

© Oxford University Press 2013. All rights reserved.

 Loading

• Loading means assigning tasks to work centers or

machines.

• When loading of jobs on machines or work centers is

done keeping in view their maximum capacity, it is
called finite loading.

• Infinite loading means while assigning tasks to a

machine or work center, its maximum capacity is
overlooked.

© Oxford University Press 2013. All rights reserved.

Different Methods of Sequencing/ Assignment of Jobs on Machines

Scheduling

Sequencing n jobs Sequencing two jobs on n Assigning n jobs

machines in different machine on m machines
sequences (Akers method)

On one On two On three On m

machine machines machines machines

First come, first Last come, In the same job

Assignment
served (FCFS) first served sequence
Model
method (FCFS)
method

Due date Random Johnson’s

method method method

Shortest
processing time
(SPT)) method

© Oxford University Press 2013. All rights reserved.