Chapter 14

Question 1

Scheduling

Answer 1

refers to the assignment of start and completion times to particular jobs, people, or equipment.

ex: scheduling restaurant employees, airline crews and planes, sports teams, factory jobs

Question 2

Sequencing

Answer 2

refers to determining the order in which jobs or tasks are processed.

ex: emergency room patients, automobile models on an assembly line, outgoing flights on runways

Question 3

Scheduling applications and approaches

Answer 3

Scheduling applies to all aspects of the value chain, from planning and releasing orders in a factory, determining work shifts for employees, and making deliveries to customers.

Question 4

Scheduling Tools

Answer 4

• Spreadsheets
• Software packages
• Web-based tools

Question 5

Staff Scheduling

Answer 5

attempts to match available personnel with the needs of the organization

Question 6

Staff Scheduling

Answer 6

1. Accurately forecasting demand and translating it into the quantity and timing of work to be done.
2. Determining the staffing required to perform the work by time period.
3. Determining the personnel available and the full- and part-time mix.
4. Matching capacity to demand requirements and developing a work schedule that maximizes service and minimizes costs.

Question 7

Appointments

Answer 7

can be viewed as a reservation for service time and capacity.

Question 8

Appointment Systems:

Four decisions

Answer 8

1. Determine the appointment time interval.
2. Determine the length of each workday and time off-duty.
3. Decide how to handle overbooking.
4. Develop customer appointment rules that maximize customer satisfaction.

Question 9

Sequencing criteria

Answer 9

1. Process-focused performance criteria (flow time and makespan)
2. Customer-focused due date criteria (lateness and tardiness)
3. Cost-based criteria

Question 10

Flow Time

Answer 10

is the amount of time a job spent in the shop or factory.

Fi = ∑pij + ∑wij = Ci - Ri

Question 11

Makespan

Answer 11

is the time needed to process a given set of jobs.

M = C - S

Question 12

Lateness

Answer 12

is the difference between the completion time and the due date (either positive or negative).

Question 13

Tardiness

Answer 13

is the amount of time by which the completion time exceeds the due date

tardiness is defined as zero if job is completed before due date

Question 14

Shortest Processing Time (SPT)

Answer 14

SPT sequencing maximizes resource utilization and minimizes average flow time and work-in-process inventory.

Question 15

Earliest Due Date (EDD)

Answer 15

EDD minimizes the maximum job tardiness and lateness.

Question 16

Priority rules when new jobs arrive intermittently

Answer 16

1. First come-first served (FCFS).
2. Fewest number of operations remaining (FNO).
3. Least work remaining (LWR) – the sum of all processing times for operations not yet performed.
4. Least amount of work at the next process queue (LWNQ) – amount of work awaiting the next process in a job’s sequence.

Question 17

Single-Resource Sequencing Problem

Answer 17

Process a set of jobs on a single processor.
- SPT sequencing finds a minimal average flow time sequence.

• FCFS rule works well when processing times are relatively equal.
• EDD rule minimizes the maximum job tardiness and lateness.

Question 18

Two-Resource Sequencing Problem (Johnson’s Rule)

Answer 18

1. List the jobs and their processing times on Resources #1 and #2.
2. Find the job with the shortest processing time (on either resource).
3. If this time corresponds to Resource #1, sequence the job first; if it corresponds to Resource #2, sequence the job last.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3, using the next-shortest processing time and working inward from both ends of the sequence until all jobs have been scheduled.

Question 19

Gantt Charts

Answer 19

are useful tools for monitoring schedules. This helps to track jobs that are behind, on, or ahead of schedule.