Operations Management: Operations Scheduling

The course on Operations Scheduling is part of the Operations Management Training Program which includes a number of eight sections also presented as individual courses for your convenience. Whether we realize it or not, we all conduct our everyday activities according to a schedule. Whether this schedule is formal or informal, highly organized or very casual, it's a schedule none the less.

This course is concerned with operations schedules, which are by necessity always formal and organized. Operations scheduling is an integral part of operations management, as it assigns tasks to an organization's available resources, which can include facilities, personnel, machinery, and equipment. It also establishes the order for performing these tasks to meet production priorities and targets.

Operations scheduling applies to a medium to short-term time frame and deals with tactical issues. It takes place once the long term strategic tasks such as demand forecasting and capacity planning have been completed. This course presents an overview of scheduling and explains the specific characteristics and challenges of scheduling in service-based organizations.

The two major components of scheduling - loading and sequencing - will also be explained. Loading designates how jobs are assigned to resources, and sequencing provides the order in which they are carried out. That's it.