Patent ID: 7089071

Claim:
A computerized method for scheduling a plurality of work orders for manufacturing products in accordance with a manufacturing process, each work order comprising a plurality of operations to be performed using a plurality of resources and materials, the method comprising: (1) receiving data in a computer, said data comprising: (a) resource availability information for each resource to be used in the manufacturing process; (b) material availability information for each material to be used in the manufacturing process; (c) work order information comprising, for each work order to be scheduled: (i) a release date for the work order and a want date for the work order; (ii) operations information comprising the identity and sequence of operations to be performed for the work order, the identity of the resources needed to perform each operation, a minimum resource capacity needed to perform each operation, and the time needed to perform each operation; and (iii) material requirements information comprising the identity of the materials needed to perform each operation and a quantity of each material needed for the operation; (2) assigning resource capacity and a start time and a finish time to each operation based upon the resource availability information, the material availability information, and the work order information; and (3) displaying on a computer screen the assigned resource capacity, the assigned start time, and the assigned finish time for each operation in a graphical format.