SMB Production Scheduling Blog

Microsoft Excel is certainly one of the most used standard software products of today - if not the most used. The plethora of both user types and application areas is very remarkable: Companies of any size use the application in almost any functional area. Just as striking: The application, designed as spreadsheet program, is very often used for rather untypical purposes. Everybody knows this “Excel Monster Application”, which is designed to deliver an output which the respective company pretty much depends on, but which basically no longer can be handled appropriately. This phenomenon particularly can get observed when it comes to the operational production scheduling within small to mid-size manufacturing companies. Hence, this blog post discusses the possibilities and limitations of an operational production scheduling with Excel.

First of all: I bluntly admit that Excel is one of my favorite software tools, and that Excel truly has supported me - in various functions - throughout my career. We still base some of our own companies' reports on Excel. Excel is a kind of swiss army knife within the Microsoft Office product family, and there are a zillion reasons and use cases why Excel is just cool. Besides the ease-of-use and the sheer unprecedented flexibility of Excel, to many folks it feels as "free" software as it comes within their Office package anyway. Hence, it is no surprise that most SMB make-to-order manufacturers and job shops typically start building their initial production schedules with Microsoft Excel. In the beginning, this tends to work rather well. But over time, the production schedule with Excel stops to cope with the pace of the business. This blog post reveals four signs warning you that your Excel-based production scheduling is about to harm your business.