Patent ID: 8290608

Claim:
Manufacturing instruction equipment which designates a treatment sequence of inputting in-process parts to each process, comprising: a memory unit; and a control unit, wherein the memory unit stores: order information specifying a product and the delivery date of the product; parts organization information specifying a product, parts constituting the product, process routes along which the parts are manufactured, and a merger process in which the parts along the process routes are merged with other parts having traveled along other process routes; process route information specifying a process route, processes included in the process route, and treatment times which it takes in the processes; and work result information specifying a product, parts constituting the product, processes to which the parts belong, and whether the parts are being treated in the processes, and wherein the control unit performs: the processing of identifying a part, which belongs to a process but is not treated in the process, as an in-process part in the process on the basis of the work result information; the processing of identifying the process route for the in-process part and the merger process on the basis of the parts organization information; the processing of tallying treatment times, which the in-process part takes in processes preceding the merger process along the process route, on the basis of the process route information, calculating a remaining treatment time which the in-process part takes to reach the merger process, calculating a remaining time left by the delivery date of a product including the in-process part, and dividing the remaining time by the remaining treatment time so as to calculate a delivery-data allowance; and the processing of, for in-process parts whose delivery-data allowances fall below a predetermined threshold, designating a treatment sequence of inputting the in-process parts to each process in ascending order of delivery-date allowances, and of, for in-process parts whose delivery-date allowances are equal to or larger than the predetermined threshold, designating a treatment sequence of inputting the in-process parts to each process in ascending order by a minimum value of remaining treatment times which parts constituting a product, which includes each of the in-process parts whose delivery-date allowances are equal to or larger than the predetermined threshold, take to reach the merger process.