This project developed a software toolbox that enables companies to be much more efficient in scheduling such production, which is a better use of resources. In addition, ScheduleZ allows them to be more responsive to their customers' changing demands. S hop floor managers in food manufacturing plants spend much of their time trying to juggle customers' rapidly changing demands for an often random range of products. Because many producers of fast turnover foods promise to meet customers' orders within 24 hours, they have to rapidly clean their production lines and switch them to different products before they can supply the correct raw materials and packaging materials from a vast range of possibilities. The problems of such batch production are compounded by the need to cater to frequent special offers, such as the addition of a free packet of crisps in a multi-pack of different flavours, and for the use of special packaging.
Customers often end up dissatisfied.
ScheduleZ was set up to produce a software tool box that would allow manufacturers and distributors to create plans and schedules for more efficient production. Although there were software systems already on the market, they did not take account of the particular conditions of the food and other fast moving manufacturing sectors. Combined approach ScheduleZ, coordinated by the systems company MJC2 of the UK, combined several commonly used approaches to the development of software in order to exploit their best features. The different approaches may be suitable for different scheduling circumstances. For example, rule based or artificial intelligence systems, can be useful in some circumstances, but in practice they are slow and it is difficult to generate enough rules.