Machine Loading Plan

How to read this sheet

Orders are sequenced earliest due date first and each is loaded whole onto the line that frees up soonest. That is list scheduling under an EDD rule: a heuristic, not an optimum, and named here because a planner should be able to reproduce it by hand and disagree with it. EDD minimises the worst lateness on a single machine, which is the nearest thing to a defensible default when no other priority has been stated; a book with a commercially critical order in it should be re-run with that order given the earliest due day. Splitting an order across two lines would finish it sooner and is not modelled, because it doubles the changeover and needs two sets of trained operators. Efficiency and absenteeism are applied to every line equally, so a line running a new style at forty percent while another runs a settled one at sixty is not represented; enter the blended figure the floor is actually achieving rather than the target on the wall. Changeover is charged once per order as it starts, which understates a style that needs a pilot run and overstates a repeat. The learning curve is not modelled at all - a new style reaches its stated efficiency here on the first piece, which no style does, so treat the finish dates as the earliest the plan permits rather than the dates to quote a buyer. Capacity in pieces is reported only against the blended SAM of this book and stops being true the moment the mix changes, which is the whole reason the plan is kept in minutes.