SMB Production Scheduling Blog

We are rolling out a new version of our job shop scheduling software to all customers and trial users. In this update, we enhanced the Execute Mode that we released a month ago. Operators can now also report the "remaining time from now" and leave a textual message on a task. In addition to this, we also added three features that increase the usability of our production scheduling software.

Our easy time and resource scheduling software for SMB manufacturers recently got recognized with two renowned German awards. just plan it, the leading job shop scheduling software, was ranked as one of the best vertical solutions within the "Innovationspreis IT for SMBs" (innovation award IT for SMBs). Second, the software is also rated as "Best of Industrie", which marks it as a leading solution for manufacturing industries.  

In this blog post, I address the arduous task of going through the different options SMB owners find themselves when considering to purchase a scheduling software for their job shop. It’s not only important that the software is the right fit but that you also feel confident and informed during all the stages of your decision process. In order to help you through this search and evaluation "jungle", I have written an eBook with a lot of tips and tricks that will make your buying journey easier.

As of today we have rolled out a new version of our job shop scheduling software to all active accounts. This means to all customers and trial users. Of course, the highlight is the new Execute Mode, which I covered in an extra blog post. With today's shipment, we decided to add some further extras (besides the usual bug fixing) on top of the Execute Mode. The extras are the integration of a support chat box into the application, enhancements of the job and task report, and more Excel upload power.

In my last blog post in January, I spoke about our roadmap. I informed you that we put some obvious things on hold to spend some time and energy on the not so obvious facets of building and running a product like just plan it. Now, I am excited to share the general availability of a long awaited (obvious) functionality: we call it the Execute Mode. The Execute Mode is available for all PRO and ENTERPRISE customers (click to compare the pricing plans).

On the list of ideas we got from all our customers and users, the capability introduced with the Execute Mode is the - by far - most prominent feature request. It enables you to easily integrate information from the shopfloor into your schedule and empowers you to keep your schedule current in a straightforward way. With the Execute Mode, job shop scheduling meets manufacturing execution.

This blog post is meant to be an introduction into the Execute Mode. It is not the core documentation of it. Within the blog post, I reference a lot of additional learning and enablement material.

This is a guest blog post provided by Ivanka Menken. She is a serial entrepreneur and the owner and Co-Founder of The Art of Service since 2000.  Ivanka specialises in creating organisations that manage their services in a sustainable and customer driven manner. Recently, Ivanka co-authored the book Production Process Scheduling Self Assessment. This blog post is an excerpt from this book and sheds a light on 15 requirements that need to be part of your production scheduling process.

Having a proper scheduling system in place is essential for any kind of manufacturing process to continuously plan and track the production status. As manufacturing processes are wide ranged as well as company sizes there are various options to choose of: One can opt for complex algorithms that aim to optimize a production line or for a more simple, straight-forward scheduling software that mainly aims at adding transparency. Some small manufacturers might even use paper or a whiteboard as a scheduling tool, others further hire experts or try to implement lean techniques or TOC tools. But, what works for one manufacturer can be counterproductive for another and vice versa. Therefore, the very first step for any manufacturing company is to identify its characteristics, goals and distinct features. Focusing on job shops, this blog post introduces some important insights for HMLV (high-mix low-volume) manufacturers and explains why ignoring them leads to inferior performance.

In order to constantly improve operations and to do justice to a constant thrive for perfection in production processes, lean manufacturing techniques are used in countless production plants worldwide. As most manufacturing philosophies, lean principles generally aim to aid low-mix high-volume (LMHV) manufacturers.

However, at the other end of the spectrum, there are high-mix low-volume (HMLV) manufacturers that differ significantly in numerous criteria, such as product variety, production volume, equipment, scheduling tools etc. Being aware of this significant diversity, one might question the applicability of lean principles for small manufacturers like job shops. This blog post presents the lean principles and investigates its relevance for HMLV manufacturers.

A couple of years ago, a production scheduling software had been far out of reach for small and medium business (hereinafter called SMB) manufacturers. The offered on-premise software at that time was too costly and too complex for SMB. A real game changer in the world of SMB manufacturers is cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service (hereinafter called SaaS). This blog post introduces the new forms of software aided production scheduling and discusses its major opportunities for small manufacturers.

 Time flies and we are already almost two full months into 2018. Nevertheless, it is not too late to take a look into the top 10 technology trends that can make a difference in your SMB manufacturing in 2018. In 2017 we were introduced to IIOT, 3D printing, automation, an increase of e-commerce, cyber security and emerging market. It is in this year, however, that these trends will find their consolidation and thus change the manufacturing landscape for good.