Dealing with Uncertainty in Manufacturing: The Impact on Scheduling

Today’s manufacturing environment is characterised by ever shorter product life cycles, greater product variety and quicker response to customers’ demands. To satisfy these requirements, manufacturers introduce greater flexibility to their process, which may lead to higher levels of complexity and uncertainty. Planning and scheduling are affected by these factors. A rigid plan is no longer valid to satisfy all the constraints and changes in the production. Our research, carried out in a leading UK manufacturer, has provided us with an understanding of the realities of the shop-floor and the effects that uncertainty has over the scheduling function. Our work has revealed the need of a new approach for solving the scheduling problem. This perception of scheduling will have to take into account not only the manufacturing variables but also external elements such as organisational features, human factors and information flow.