Patent ID: 7379905

Claim:
A method for scheduling work and delivery of material for mass-producing items in a factory comprising: obtaining at least one outstanding customer order, wherein each outstanding customer of the at least one outstanding customer order includes an item ordered by a customer, and producing the item requires a required quantity of a required material; determining a current state of an available inventory of at least one material from a plurality of material sources; and periodically generating a work schedule and a material delivery schedule on a tangible medium for producing the item using the at least one outstanding customer order and the current state of the available inventory, wherein the periodically generating occurs at fixed time intervals; the periodically generating occurs more than once during a manufacturing shift; the determining the current state of the available inventory is performed such that the determining the current state of the available inventory is completed immediately prior to the generating the work schedule and the material delivery schedule; and the obtaining the at least one outstanding customer order is performed such that the obtaining the customer order is completed immediately prior to the generating the work schedule and the material delivery schedule.