Scheduling and rescheduling rules in wood industry production systems

This paper contributes to the research on planning, managing, and scheduling of production by using new methods of determining priorities in issuing production orders; it is an attempt to apply those methods to new concepts of production and operations management implemented in woodworking firm. The aim of the research was to establish the manner in which the differences between individual methods are manifested and their relevance for the particular production in the observed furniture factory; which of the methods is the most acceptable in production scheduling and rescheduling resp.; what are the possibilities to reduce production costs, and how could the observed methods be adapted and applied to new concepts of production and operations management. In line with the research aims, relevant factors for the selection of scheduling und rescheduling methods in wood-technological industry were established. All the relevant factors were then analysed by means of different result processing methods and by establishing their impact

upon the total production cycle duration. The obtained results provided the basis upon which the quality and applicability of the individual method were established as well as the factors influencing their choice. The SOT (KVO) method achievod the best results. This method gives priority to orders that have the shortest production cycle duration in the first or the first two processing phases. Among the rescheduling methods, the best results were established with the DS/PT (DRVP) method which gives the priority to orders with the smallest ratio between the delivery time reduced by the remaining expected time on the one hand and remaining work on the other. Further analysis resulted in an assumption that the observed methods may be applied in the planning process in wood-technological firms. With certain restrictions, they may be implemented in new concepts of production and operations management. The main achievement of these methods is rationalization of the production management process.