Apparatus for control and evaluation of pending jobs in a factory

Claim 2

A factory for processing jobs-in-progress, and producing completed work, said factory comprising: a plurality of machines for receiving and processing ones of said jobs-in-progress and at least a portion of said plurality of machines having waiting queues, said machines providing status information relating to respective ones of said waiting queues; a source of orders; a source of user-selected job release criteria, said criteria including at least one of a respective utilization factor and a respective job on-time factor assigned to respective ones of said machines; storing means, responsive to said source of orders, for storing pending orders, and for releasing a selected order for inclusion in said jobs-in-progress in response to selection information; and means, responsive to information from said storing means, to said source of job release criteria and to said machine status information, for producing and revising said selection information so as to establish a Factory Profile curve of an optimum release strategy for said factory, determining a corresponding curve of predicted actual processing for each of said jobs from a trial start date through the expected completion of said job in said factory, comparing said actual job curve for each of said jobs with said Factory Profile optimum curve, and accepting said job for processing by said factory on said trial start date if said actual job curve closely follows said Factory Profile curve, within predefined bounds, throughout the processing time for said job, and otherwise determining a new curve of predicted actual processing for said job from a new trial start date and repeating said comparison.

Claim 3

The factory of claim 1, wherein said selection information producing means further includes a means for determining a range enclosing said Factory Profile curve and wherein said acceptance criteria is satisfied if said actual job curve falls within said range enclosing said Factory Profile curve.

Claim 4

The factory of claim 2, wherein said selection information producing means further includes a means for adjusting said range about said Factory Profile curve to provide a wider range for jobs having a higher than normal priority.

Claim 5

The factory of claim 2, wherein said selection information producing means further includes a computational means for computing said start date for acceptance using a BestStartDate algorithm: ______________________________________ Let Ethmax be maximum Threshold Error Let Ethmin (E = Error) be minimum Threshold Error Emin <- Eth Emax <- 0 is the max error without going over the threshold value Sd <- Desired.sub.-- Sd (desired start date), SDc <- Sd, i.e. current Sd is originally set to the Desired.sub.-- Sd Nr, N1 no of right shifts and left shifts allowed Nr is a function of order priority, i.e. as order priority increases then Nr becomes smaller; N1 is a management- determined finished good inventory function, stating how early, in the worst case, completion of the order will be acceptable. Note that these two parameters decide on the boundaries of the search space. They can be either predefined or can be decided at the time of order entry. n is shift counter; +ve for right shifts & -ve for left shifts; n <- 0 Wc is the current window.sub.-- no w <- Wc Allocate: Set t <- end.sub.-- of(w) /* t the max time unit in w, e.g., last day of week w */ Allocate until t OR all steps done otherwise EXIT Evaluate e(t), where t is the end of current window If e(t) > Ethmin THEN BEGIN if e(t) < Emin THEN BestSD <- SDc, Emin <- e(t); /*else the previous SD was better*/ find.sub.-- a.sub.-- better.sub.-- sd; auto allocate i END-begin ELSE /* error term is still smaller than threshold */ BEGIN w <- w+1 Emax <- e(t) GOTO allocate END-begin; If e(t) > Ethmax THEN warning: Promised due date is too good for this priority class; print(BestSD, Emin, Emax); END BestStartDate. PROCEDURE find.sub.-- a.sub.-- better.sub.-- sd: If n=<0 & n>N1 THEN shiftleftORright(-) /* note that N1 is a -ve number */ Else IF n<Nr THEN shiftleftORright(+); ELSE /* UNSUCCESSFUL release */ DO ONE OF THE FOLLOWING Increase job's priority; not recommended if done too often; Decrease job's priority, i.e., increasing Nr the search space this is relaxing constraints; Decrease(make more negative) N1, this is also relaxing WIP constraint; Suspend release until a later time; Other alternatives are changing Eth and CI* etc but these are not recommended since they would have a global effect. END-else; END.sub.-- find.sub.-- a better.sub.-- sd. PROCEDURE shiftleftORright (.sup.˜): /* .sup.˜ is - if shiftleft and + if shiftright */ n <- n.sup.˜ 1 w <- w.sup.˜ 1 Wc <- w SDc <- max(starttime(w), Today) END shiftleftORright. ______________________________________

Claim 6

The factory of claim 2, wherein said selection information producing means comprises a computer.

Claim 7

The factory of claim 2, wherein said order storing means comprises a data base stored on a computer.

Claim 8

The factory of claim 2, wherein said selection information producing means and said order storing means are comprised on the same computer.

Claim 9

The factory of claim 2, wherein said machines are controlled by a computer system directly connected to said information producing means and order storing means computer.