Cabinet Shop Scheduling
Cabinet Shop Scheduling requires a unique approach because the manufacturing process is unique.
Manufacturing wood products such as furniture and cabinets require a multi-skilled work force which moves from task to task.
Unlike a mass produced products where machinery determines capacity, it is primarily the availability of skilled employees that determines capacity.
That is why Tractivity Scheduling software is ideal for custom product manufacturing such as cabinetry, millwork and furniture.
Overview Video
Tractivity Cabinet Shop Scheduling Software automates work assignments based upon employee skills and preferences, equipment availability, process routing, work schedules, job due dates and priorities. The built-in feedback system eliminates tedious updating and facilitates quick and easy generation of schedules as frequently as desired.
- Schedule Dependent On Employee Skills & Qualifications
- Schedule Dependent Required Equipment Availability
- Schedule Dependent On Process Routing
- Schedule Dependent On Job Due Dates
Why do I need Cabinet Shop Scheduling?
Managing a cabinet shop is easier when you know the answers to important questions like:
- Can I tell the customer that I can deliver on the date he needs?
- Who should be working on what right now?
- When will jobs be completed?
- Am I on schedule?
- Can I take on more work?
If you are scheduling using spreadsheets, white boards or just in your head you know that it is very time consuming and difficult. Especially with the number of changes that happen every day causing a need to reschedule. With Tractivity Scheduling you will be able to click a button to reschedule every released job and see every resource utilization as far into the future as needed.
How does Cabinet Shop Scheduling work?
The foundation for Tractivity Scheduling is the labor budget. Each job has a labor budget including hours by process. Every process has been configured with a routing sequence and prerequisite conditions. Employees have been setup with skill qualifications, assignment preferences and availability calendar. Processes have been associated with equipment where necessary. The Scheduler automates the assignment of the preferred qualified resource and equipment to the labor process sequentially through the shop routing sequence. The shop manager may create work day reports or detailed employee assignments. Employees may access their schedules from the shop floor data capture station or from their supervisor referencing the scheduling system.
Each job that is released for scheduling includes an automatically created plan with these elements:
- Each labor activity/process to be performed
- The number of hours budgeted for the labor process
- The routing sequence for each process
- The condition for advancing to the next activity sequence
- The minimum number of employees to assign
- The maximum number of employees to assign
- A “Keep Together” setting to force the scheduling to keep the subsequent assignments with the same resource
- A Post delay hours indicating additional time after completion before allowing the next sequence to start
- The “Planned Time to Complete” which is the remaining hours to schedule. This value may be different than the original budget due to progress feedback.
- The Labor Pool (normally set to Entire Company)
- The Equipment pool (normally set to Entire Company)
The Cabinet Shop Scheduler then utilizes the following information to determine the best work assignments:
- Due date of job
- Priority of job
- Earliest Start Date
- Activity labor process sequence
- Activity prerequisite condition
- Availability of required equipment for activity
- Availability of qualified employee resource(s)
- Employee preferred work assignment criteria
