Does anyone have a solution for entering production calendars where working hours aren’t in increments of full hours? We plan on using finite scheduling for some resource groups but we work 7.5 hour shifts. Is there a way to reflect this in the schedule? I feel like over the course of the year, that half-hour could throw our schedule way off, especially for the operations where our production estimates match our actuals. Maybe I’m just overthinking it and rounding off the half-hour doesn’t matter. If there isn’t a way to schedule in half-hour increments, do you recommend rounding up to 8 or down to 7. I’m a fan of the “underpromise, overdeliver” approach, but maybe there’s a reason we would want to set the calendar to 8 hours.
We have typically rounded our production hours down to the nearest hour to account for downtime while people are walking to/from the machines, getting water, stretching, etc. This has usually been “good enough” since we will also review and adjust our schedules every over week or so. In our experience, factors like machine/tool downtime, material shortages, and manpower/skill gaps have been a bigger contributor to our schedule shifting than under-planning by a half-hour each shift.
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@Daniel_Price No, the blocks and how they schedule them is a fixed thing. Remember scheduling isn’t “producing” it is the plan that gives you the most chance for your under promise overachieve to happen. Scheduling for all positions involves giving them the window to get the work needed done. With the exception of sales this is true for the rest of the org. buyers, receiving, materials, pre production, production, packing, shipping all need a window. How tight you make that window is up to you, but I error on the side of success without stressing them too much. We use people, average efficiency, sick time, etc in setting the hours per resource group to get them close to reality.
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