12 Immutable Laws of Scheduling
One
The amount of confusion your company experiences is directly proportional to the number of people involved in making scheduling decisions.
Two
Tribal knowledge is not actually tribal because it is kept in the heads of just a few individuals for a reason… knowledge is power.
Three
If you have a scheduling system that tells you, for example, that you can be efficient or ship on time, then most managers will say they want you to do both… Therefore, they will never be executives.
Four
Some schedulers are like firemen… they only feel needed when there is a fire to put out, so preventing fires is not a high priority.
Five
If you lose your best customer to your competition, how much money has your cheap scheduling system really cost you?
Six
As soon as you get a perfect schedule, it changes, and there’s no such thing as a small change.
Seven
Your sales department thinks scheduling is easy… you just put the critical orders to the front of the queue… what could possibly go wrong?
Eight
Your scheduler is usually more powerful than the President… of the United States.
nine
Your bad customers complain all day, but your good customers just leave quietly.
Ten
Expediting is the opposite of scheduling.
Eleven
With uncertainty, an understandable solution is far better than a supposed optimal solution.
Twelve
If you don’t understand sequencing, you can never create a good schedule.