Scheduling in a high mix low volume environment is challenging in many ways. The high volatility of planning data due to ongoing and unforeseeable changes of the planning situation is not only a core characteristic of that business sector but also one main reason why scheduling is so critical.
To better clarify what I mean let's have a look at the „natural order of things“ concerning SMB production scheduling from the very beginning of a SMBs historical timeline.
At this point the job shop owners realize that a proper production scheduling software solution is urgently needed to be able to further master the growth and meet the business targets. This awareness leads them to evaluate potential software options.
Let‘s go into more details of this dilemma. Therefore you have to understand the workload of the job shop's manager. This „poor guy“ is:
The workload for just one of this areas easily exceeds a normal workday. So, it is pretty obvious that the manager – or even all people that are able to evaluate potential software options – are bottlenecks. Understandably the permanent operational issues have a higher priority than investing time into administrative evaluations. So, although there is the deep awareness that one must find a scheduling software solution the daily business prevents to make the next step. The result is that the situation of missing transparency remains and the chaos even gets bigger with every sales order. The limited time of the decision makers gets even more tied to the daily firefighting. In other words: the company is trapped in a „vicious circle“!
However, you must not get stuck in this dilemma. Continue reading our have a look at our ultimate guide to visual job scheduling to get your way out of it.
So, what’s the way out of this dilemma? Just to give relief: there is a way out! But I've to admit that this requires the full conviction and discipline of the decision makers. First of all you have to internalize that making the step from no to professional scheduling is
If you have fully internalized these facts, then you jumped over the highest hurdle.
But there is another important conviction to get: within your budgeted process of evaluating software options, don't try to find the jack of all trades. There just won't be a software solution that meets all your requirements AND your budget.
Hence, look for best of the appropriate options. Every appropriate option will provide massive benefit in comparison to your current („No-“) option. I've seen companies that had extreme problems and needed urgent solutions in terms of scheduling but refused appropriate software options because they did not fully met their (disproportionately) long list of requirements. Inevitably, the image of a thirsty man in the desert comes to one's mind, that refuses the water and keeps on crawling for wine. So, be smart and keep your requirements reasonable, and accept appropriate fits to make the best possible out of your investment.
At this point generally you have two options which are in the end a make-or-buy-decision:
Like every make-or-buy-decision both options have its pros and cons. Self educated on-boarding is less expensive in terms of money but requires much more of own commitment and time to be successful.
As we learned that time of the decision makers is the gross bottleneck, experience has shown that the second option promises a much greater success rate for SMBs: when paying for an on-boarding service package the appointed users are "forced" into a fully structured process of learning professional production scheduling.
Which in turn means that the investment can be productively done and an appropriate tool can be implemented with a much lower probability of being interrupted by daily business. Once the on-boarding is completed the step out of the vicious circle is made and the phase of harvesting is ready to start.