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.