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Schedlyzer

(Scheduling Software for High-Variety Custom Production)

Please visit our updated page, http://optisol.biz/Schedlyzer/


Schedlyzer is a versatile, powerful and affordable software tool for scheduling order-driven, high-mix, low- volume production. Based on rigorous, finite capacity scheduling logic, Schedlyzer generates an optimal production schedule without resource overloading almost instantaneously. As shown on our web page, Lean Production, optimal job release times determined by Schedlyzer ensure minimal WIP and short job lead times. The software helps extract the best shop performance from the existing limited resources first and helps find and implement the most cost-effective changes to the system one by one for improving plant production performance.

Schedlyzer supports the objectives of maximizing on-time delivery, throughput and overall productivity of resources and minimizing WIP, production lead times and firefighting by optimally scheduling operations with the help of rigorous logic. It also identifies bottlenecks in the system and provides intelligent decision support for managing production efficiently and for negotiating with customers in quoting lead times for new orders. Development of Schedlyzer is based on the premise that control and management of job shop production will be more efficient with the help of:

Some Functions and Features of Schedlyzer:

1. Display of Current Status of Jobs:
Schedlyzer shows all operations which are either ongoing or ready for processing at the time of scheduling. All such operations may not be scheduled at that time due to limited resources. Schedlyzer shows scheduled ones among those operations in a different color. This information can also be seen for each work center separately.

2. Generation of Job Schedules and Dispatch Lists for Resources: For day-to-day production control, supervisors and workers need a display of current status and projected progress of jobs and a dispatch list (operation sequence) for each resource. Schedlyzer generates both of them as part of the scheduling exercise. It can revise them instantaneously whenever required if fresh job status information is available to it. Such revision may be necessary for dealing with unexpected changes like machine breakdown, worker absenteeism and rework.

3. Fixing Rational Lead Times for New Orders:
For many job shops, the problem of managing order-driven, high-variety production starts with determination of lead times for new orders. Those shops may have stringent due dates imposed by some powerful customers and a need for fixing rational due dates for new orders based on the existing workload and resource capacities.

In many job shops where bottlenecks keep moving over time due to changing product mix, it is truly a challenge to fix an appropriate due date (or lead time) for each new order. Shorter lead time quotation can cause anxiety and firefighting while longer quotation can disappoint customers. Balancing both risks, Schedlyzer will find a right lead time for each new order based on the existing workload and resource capabilities and capacities (avoiding guesswork and standard, time-invariant quotation of lead times).

4. Determining Optimal Start Times for Jobs:
One of the most difficult decisions to be made in high-variety, order-driven production is to find a right start time for each job based on the existing workload and resource capacities. Early job start times can result in higher WIP and longer lead times whereas late start may result in the reduction of shop productivity, resource utilization and on-time delivery. Schedlyzer finds right job start times (as shown on the page, Lean Production) balancing both risks by taking into account process and resource requirements of jobs, due dates and resource capacities.

5. Handling Vendor Operations and Material Available Times:
Many people face some difficulty to include vendor operations in the schedule because progress of those operations cannot be monitored like that of internal operations. Schedlyzer efficiently incorporates vendor operations and material available times into production schedule.

6. Handling Multi-Resource Requirements of Operations and General Precedence Relations among Operations:
In some cases, an operation may simultaneously require two or more resources like machine plus worker and wait until all the required resources are available at the same time. Schedlyzer can easily schedule such operations with a feasible assignment of the required resources. Many scheduling tools are unable to handle multi-resource requirements of operations. Schedlyzer accepts general precedence relations among operations of any job and therefore, it can easily schedule project-oriented production where each order can be viewed a project of several tasks.

7. Optimal Utilization of Multi-Functional Machines and Multi-Skilled Workers:
Small and mid-sized job shops which need to perform a vareity of operations as required by customer orders usually employ multi-skilled workers for achieving the maximum productivity of workers. Similarly, they also use multi-functional machines for achieving the maximum productivity of machines. Resources may have different working hours (shifts / calendars) and calendar exceptions like machine breakdowns and worker absenteeism. Schedlyzer generates a high quality schedule by optimally assigning multi-skilled workers and multi-functional machines to operations. This is possible when resource requirement of operations is specified in terms of skill and machine function rather than specific resource names. Such schedules improve shop throughput, on-time delivery, WIP and order lead times.

8. Prediction of Workflow, Bottlenecks and Job Completion Times:
A reliable prediction of workflow, bottleneck formations and job completion times can give great confidence to people who manage high-variety production. Control and management by reliable workflow prediction is efficient for high-variety production. Schedlyzer offers such prediction in the form of schedule by taking into account both resource availability and natural variation in the system.

9. Enabling What-If Analysis of Schedules:
Production people develop a schedule mainly for production control on shop floor. However, if a simple and powerful solution is available for quickly generating a meaningful schedule with minimal effort, then it can be used for fast and extensive what-if analysis of schedules. Proper what-if analysis greatly helps in evaluating and comparing various alternative decisions for efficient management of high-variety production. Quick and reliable what-if analysis will be very useful in production meetings. As indicated in its name, Schedlyzer is developed with special emphasis on what-if analysis for high-variety production.

10. Facilitating Proactive Capacity Planning:
This is very relevant to a high-variety production system which does not have steady demand for many types of products. The varying product mix keeps changing the amount of workload for some resources and consequently bottlenecks may keep changing over time. This necessitates dynamic capacity adjustments at work stations. Schedlyzer enables planners to foresee the need for such adjustments and make optimal decisions.

11. Enabling Study and Analysis of Dynamic Nature of High-Variety Production:
Schedlyzer can also be used for studying and analyzing the dynamic nature of high-variety, order-driven production systems to form mid-term and long-term company strategies.


Schedule Output:
Schedule output consists of job schedule summary, resource utilization percentages (for any selected time period), projected daily resource utilization levels, detailed job schedules and detailed resource schedules. Schedlyzer provides powerful graphic features and drag-and-drop options. Gantt charts graphically display, with zooming option, summarized job schedules and detailed schedules of jobs and resources. Drag-and-drop operation is available on Gantt chart to manually change a schedule generated by Schedlyzer without violating any constraints. Schedlyzer however reduces the need for drag-and-drop operations by scheduling all the workload efficiently and automatically with the help of advanced algorithms. Users can save schedule output in many formats including Excel.

Primary Benefits of Schedlyzer:
  • Higher on-time delivery
  • Improved throughput
  • Shorter lead times
  • Low inventory
  • Higher resource utilization
  • Less firefighting
  • Efficient bottleneck management
  • Proactive capacity planning
  • Easier handling of rush orders and order priority changes
  • Quick, optimum response to changes in production.
Although the powerful software, Schedlyzer does not require users to have rigorous training for several hours, the users need to have some help from us in the initial stage. This software can be used as  standalone scheduling software or it can be integrated with any popular ERP package.

A Free, Fully Functional, 60-day Trial Copy:
Contact us for a free,duly configured, fully functional, 60-day trial copy of the software. Before giving the free trial copy, we would first present a live web demo of Schedlyzer and configure the trial copy as required for your system. We would also offer you free help during trial runs.
As described in our article, "Scientific management of job shop production", our article,powerful scheduling software can generate dependable schedules for resources, facilitate fast and extensive what-if analysis of workflow and support proactive capacity planning and provide intelligent decision support for efficient management of machine shop production. Our software, Schedlyzer is one of the most powerful tools for these purposes. The summary of its output is as illustarted on our page, Lean Production.

Even Schedlyzer Lite, a lighter and low-cost version of Schedlyzer is very helpful for the same purposes. A brief YouTube video of this tool without details is available on our home page.

A Free, Fully Functional, 60-day Trial Copy:
Practical utility of a scheduling tool for any specific production unit can be correctly evaluated by using it with real data for some days. For this reason, we freely offer duly configured, fully functional, 60-day trial copy of Schedlyzer or Schedlyzer Lite. Contact us for a free trial copy. Before giving the free trial copy, we would first present a live web demo of Schedlyzer Lite and configure the copy as required for your system. We would also offer you free help during trial runs.

 

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