The Global Supply Chain: A Modern Challenge
A product may travel thousands of miles and cross multiple borders before reaching the consumer. Today, goods are manufactured and transported across more countries and greater distances than ever before. During the pandemic, the supply chain became a focal point when delivery delays and long wait times skyrocketed—think back to the toilet paper shortages. Images of shipping containers, warehouses, and delivery trucks filled search engines as people outside the supply chain began questioning why products took so long to arrive.
Resilience, agility, and sustainability quickly became key priorities for supply chain leaders. Connecting the dots across the supply chain, improving transparency between functions and nodes, and leveraging the latest technologies became top concerns in boardrooms and hot topics on the conference circuit.
The Forgotten Pre-First Mile: The Shop Floor
While building supply chain excellence has become a global priority, the factory often remains overlooked. Yet, the most challenging and complex part of a product’s journey often happens on the shop floor—what we might call the ‘pre-first mile.’ In many factories, operations management still relies on basic Excel spreadsheets, leaving production scheduling as one of the last frontiers for digital transformation. Production scheduling is a critical bridge to overcome these challenges by bringing structure, visibility, and efficiency to the shop floor. By digitizing and optimizing production schedules, manufacturers can better align operations with supply chain demands, reduce lead times, and adapt to disruptions with agility.
A Case Study in Scheduling Transformation
A leading food manufacturing company’s performance metrics looked strong, with service levels exceeding 99% and double-digit inventory turns. However, they identified a critical need to modernize production scheduling. As key schedulers approached retirement, the company faced a growing knowledge gap. Despite no immediate fulfillment or service issues, their outdated production system and intuitive, home-grown scheduling methods were insufficient to support ongoing growth. Rapid expansion and mounting operational complexities underscored the urgency for a scalable, advanced production scheduling solution capable of managing their intricate scheduling requirements.
Evaluating production scheduling software can be challenging, particularly when a project doesn’t align with traditional value metrics like improved service levels or inventory turns. When managing complexity and growth are the primary goals, simply having software that works effectively can be a significant achievement. For manufacturers with highly flexible and complex environments involving numerous products and production lines, achieving this is no small feat.
Schedulers often prefer home-grown solutions because they align with intuitive, experience-based decision-making. However, these systems depend heavily on tribal knowledge, with schedulers relying on instinct and experience to manage schedules. This creates a significant risk when it comes to knowledge transfer, especially as experienced staff transition out of their roles.
The Power of Product Wheels
For scheduling to work in industries like food manufacturing, process, or chemicals, a production scheduling solution must be able to handle Product Wheels. In Peter King’s The Product Wheel Handbook: Creating Balanced Flow in High-Mix Process Operations, he discusses the challenges of matching customer demand, leveling production, and optimizing sequencing to minimize changeovers and material loss. King states, ‘The ability to address all of these challenges in a thorough, comprehensive, holistic fashion is what gives Product Wheels their power.’ Having this capability on a scalable, easy-to-use platform is crucial in removing scheduling from silos and eliminating reliance on tribal knowledge.
The key value of advanced production scheduling software lies in its ability to replace these siloed, home-grown approaches with a scalable, reliable solution. Manufacturers can mitigate risk, streamline operations, and build a foundation for long-term success by providing a system that works seamlessly and supports growth.
Agility and Efficiency: The Benefits of a Robust Scheduling System
With an advanced production scheduling solution, the benefits go far beyond just having it work. A robust scheduling process that adapts quickly to change brings agility and resilience to the supply chain while reducing resource waste. As demand patterns shift and disruptions—both internal and external—become more frequent and intense, optimizing scheduling sequences allows you to manage change while minimizing changeovers, improving inventory positions, and enhances capacity utilization. The benefits can mean avoiding the need for additional capital expenses, even another production facility, to manage growth. Driving scheduling efficiencies while managing growth without a big capital expense and making the life of the scheduler less stressful brings the conversation of shop floor improvements to the boardroom.
The Shop Floor’s Role in Digital Supply Chain Transformation
As global supply chains become increasingly complex, many companies have focused on optimizing transportation, transparency, and technology to enhance resilience and efficiency. However, the often-overlooked shop floor, where production scheduling occurs, remains a critical area for improvement. A more scalable and resilient scheduling solution is urgent for any company facing a potential knowledge gap, increasing operational complexity, and growth. By transitioning from a home-grown, siloed scheduling system reliant on tribal knowledge to a more integrated and efficient solution, manufacturers can improve their ability to manage growth without major capital expenses. This shift underscores the importance of including production scheduling in your digital transformation to drive efficiencies, agility, and sustainability across the entire supply chain.
Don’t Let Your Shop Floor Hold Back Your Supply Chain Transformation
It’s time to bring production scheduling out of the shadows and into the spotlight of your supply chain strategy. The factory floor is no longer a place for spreadsheets and siloed decision-making. By embracing advanced scheduling solutions, you can reduce complexity, drive agility, and position your business for sustainable growth without costly capital investments.
Ready to take the next step? Empower your schedulers, reduce reliance on tribal knowledge, and build a more connected, efficient supply chain. Start your production scheduling transformation today. Contact us to learn how.
