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Need some help with scheduling.
Need some suggestions on how to best schedule three designers, six craftsmen and four helpers. I am trying to figure out how I schedule several jobs considering concept dwg’s, shop dwg’s, fabrication and instalation. Currently unable to tell a customer when I can deliver and more importantly if I can deliver. Any comments would be appreciated.
Scott
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Hi Scott-
Um, I think I need a lot more information. What are these jobs (how big, how much time?), are the people full-time or part-time (if so, how much do they work?)
When you say, "how to schedule", what do you mean? Is the essence of your question, "How much output can each of these people create in a given amount of time (day/week/month) on a predictable basis?"
Email some more info back to the forum, and then I'm sure somebody will have some suggestions on how to approach the issues of time, productivity, and money.
Good luck
Chris Gleason
Gleason Tableworks
http://www.interestingfurniture.com
*Scott,Think of time as money, and make a budget. X # dollars for labor (from your estimate) = X # hours in shop. Make a chart on paper or in a spreadsheet program, and start subtracting "committed hours" from "available hours". Of course you need some basic information to begin with, such as your hourly shop rate, and you need to keep track of productivity. There is a lot more to it than this, but you have to start some where. Everybody goes through this as their business grows, and if you don't keep up with it it can make you crazy.Bob Langhttp://www.craftsmanplans.com
*Send two of the designers out for coffee. Have the third draw up some stuff. Get the helpers to rip a whole pallet of 1/2" ply into 3" strips. The craftsmen should dovetail a mess of drawers, hell, everyone needs drawers. When the customer comes in distract him with the first set of drawings while the other two designers sneak in the back door. Meanwhile, have two tablesaws running continuously, screw and glue the rails to the...Sorry, yankin' yer chain. This is not a question that can be answered without knowing many, many particulars, and if you want someone to read thru them and give you an answer, you'll probably have to pay that person.Figuring out how to move things through your shop efficiently seems to me to be the real key to making money, and even with only me to keep in line, its hard for me to make it all work. Good luck...
*Hi Scott,You’re not alone. I once had the owner of one of the biggest and best shops here in NYC tell me had no idea how long or how much it cost to actually produce a piece of furniture. For me it helps to think of project management issues as simply an extension of the creation of a piece of furniture. For example, creating a piece of furniture has distinct steps: marketing, intake (the sale), planning, rough dimension, parts creation, assembly, finishing, delivery and follow up. The same is true when doing project management with staff or on a large complex project. Every project has steps which are determined at the planning stage. Each step has labor and materials requirement which are also determined at the planning stage. Every project has a sequence: some steps come before other ones – also determined at the planning stage. It sounds to me like you’re not doing enough planning at the intake stage. If you’re using “cost plus” for your estimating that would explain it. You first need to know how long a project will actually take you. Actually time yourself – it takes me two hours to cut the mortise and tenon joints for a table: or six hours; or twenty minutes. But armed with that information you can do a real estimate based upon expected time for the project. Then when you get the project, measure the actual time so you know whether you’re high or low. As you build up a data base of information not only will your estimates get better, but your project planning and management will as well.Once you have that database, there is project management software you can get to help (like MS-Project or Project Management Workbench). I always found the software clumsy - useful for building skyscrapers and manageing 100’s of people but not for managing 10 or less - but I haven’t tried using it in 10 years. But it did help me to read the manual and learn what the issues were: resource allocation; over allocation of resources; critical path, etc. But start by gathering your database. If you have that, the rest of it falls into place. Hope this helps.Regards,Kim Carleton GravesCarleton Woodworking
*Try http://www.woodweb.comThey have a forum dedicated to this. Actually there is a folder on this site for this question as well. If you are near CT. the woodworking show for professionals has a panel discussion scheduled on this issue.http://www.tsishows.com/
*Scott - What you are attempting to do comes under the heading of "Project Management". While you can make it extremely complex you can also make it very simple. The simplest way is to get commitments from you senior personnel. These commitments will form your basic time line for the project. Once you have these commitments it is critical that you evaluate all of the possible risks. Risks are the "What if's" that need to have rapid solutions in order to keep the job on schedule and profitable. This is a very simplistic overview of the process. and in no way do I intend to say that this all there is to it. I suggest you check out a few books, at your library, on project management.Steve
*Scott, I think Steve is on the right track. Involve your people in setting target completion dates and use incentives to motivate them to meet the dates. Build 5% or 10% into your cost structure and then bonus it out to the crew, if they make the target date. Since labor is a major element in your cost, you may find that this method actually reduces total project costs in that it will stimulate your people to be efficient. Just be sure they are involved in setting the completion dates, so there is no argument about its being a reasonable goal.
*Scott:Not sure where you are located, but hopefully you are near some manufacturers - preferably folks who do what you do but also widget folks. Planning, scheduling and managing the process has taken the wind out of quite a few people - from major firms to small ones. You also need to continuously measure - time, labor, materials which means you must collect that information. There's an old saying in manufacturing - opinions are like noses, everybody has one - base your decisions on data and that means data collection. And it can get complicated. That's why I suggest visiting some folks who are already doing it. Also, check with your local community college and local economic development - they have resources that many times can help you and they may have grants (read gift) to help pay for a system. You have an organization that if I count correctly, is providing 14 jobs to your local economy. That's a nice size shop. Check out those local resources. Good Luck!
*Thank you very much to everyone for all your help.All of your responses were extremely helpful, but I now realize that I did not give you enough info about what is a very complex issue.I think the main thing that I was wondering is if anyone knew of a specific scheduling method that would work for this situation. I have thought about critical path but I am not sure that it would work in this situation. It seems to me that it is more directed to single specific project from what I remember of how it works (it has been many moons since I have done one). Although I have not looked at it yet, it sounds like MS Project is constructed similarly as critical path. The problem with a bar chart or even a simple calender method is this. You have to have two sets of schedules. One for each individual as well as one for each project. The problem is how to mesh the two together. I'll explain.Let's assume that I am pretty good at knowing how much work each individual can turn out given their specific task (by the way, I'm working very hard at developing time studies to actually be able to do this). I have to stop that thought for a moment because I think while I was typing this I have come up with the answer to my question. I think what I need will be three or possible four separate schedules. The reason is this. I can divide a project into four distinct stages. First concept drawings. I need concept drawings to secure the job in order to move on the next phase. I still have to schedule the time for a designer to do the concepts, but until I secure the job, I have no job to put into the production schedule. Second would be shop drawings and ordering of materials. Once I know when shop drawings will be done I can then schedule the job to a specific person or persons to fabricate. Finally, knowing this, I can schedule delivery and/or installation.In a perfect world this should work, but we all know about those fires and emergencies that come up every day. One of your helpers blows the gears out of the molder because he didn't listen and tried to run Wormy Chestnut to fast and now your molder is down for a week waiting for the parts to come in. The delivery driver wrecks the the truck while on his way to make a delivery to the ins taller who is setting at the job site waiting and so on and so on and so on. You get the picture.So, after all this discussion, I find myself asking the real question that I needed an answer to. If I do these schedules by hand, then when these little fires come up it throws off the entire schedule and I have to rewrite the whole thing. If I had a program that I could plug in these delays and it would extend out the schedule of all those parts that are effected I would be a happy camper.Just so that I am not misleading anyone, this is not my shop I am talking about. This is a shop that I do about 90-95% of my work for. So therefore his scheduling problem is my scheduling problem. For example, last week I had no work for him because shop drawings were not done. Now this week I have drawings but won't have material until wed. This job is scheduled to take 110 hrs and he needs it delivered by Mar 22. Do the math. So, his lack of planning and scheduling is now my problem?Over the next few days I will look at the web sites you all suggested as well as your own individual sites if you listed one. I have some comments for some of you individually, but I'll save them for another post since I am sure this is getting very long. I apologize.Thank you all very much once again for your comments.
*I told you I would be back!Bob,You are exactly correct. When I was doing interior trim work that was exactly how I did my bid sheet. When I got done pricing a job I could tell you within a couple of hours how long it would take me to do a job. I am attempting to do the same with the shop. It is very difficult to track time if the phone rings, somebody stops in to talk or someone in the shop ask you a question or needs help and you forget to write down the time. I am working toward that goal though. The other problem is that cabinet making in my shop is all custom. While certain portions of a job may be similar, almost every job is different. Thanks for your comments.Kim,After I re read your post I realized part of my answer was in the middle of your post. Thanks!hotsawdust,I agree with you. I look at the shop almost every day thinking about how changing the shop layout would improve efficiency. Thanks.Rickk,I have woodweb book marked. I'll check it out.Steve & Jon,I think you gave me another piece to the puzzle. I think that there should input from the people actually doing the work. Thanks.Ed,I will definitely follow your advice. Around here though most of the shop owners are pretty closed mouth. They somehow feel that giving up that info is like giving away a trade secret! That is why this forum is so helpful. Most everyone is willing to help with an opinion if they can help. Thanks.
*Scott:The scheduling issues you are trying to solve can be done with software that "finite schedules." Most scheduling software used infinite scheduling that blows out a schedule as if if you have all the time in the world to complete a job. Finite schdeuling says I have a work center that is typically utilized 40 hours a week - how do I fill the workcenter's load and at the same time balance the load at other workcenters. We developed scheduling tools in the steel industry (which in many ways is like a large woodshop) to ensure we had maximum utilization of our workcenters and throughput to service our orders.I've been away from this stuff for some time so I don't know who has a good software product. You mention that your competitors are very closed in sharing ideas - I understand that mentality. So go with some manufacturers outside your marketplace. Thomas Moser in Auburn Maine produces high end furniture - call them and talk to their scheduler; if they can't help you, then maybe they can give you some leads to other folks. Also, don't forget the local technical colleges/community colleges. And take a look at a widget manufacturer - they are doing some of the things you want to do - call up some of them. And lastly, there is a group called the American Procduction and Inventory Society (APICS) that probably has a chapter in your area - these are folks like yourself with similar issues and they can be very helpful.
*Thanks Ed, I'll follow your advice and do some more research.
*Hi Scott,Let me add a couple of things: if this is not your scheduling problem but your clients, there is almost nothing you can do other than to try and protect yourself. Make sure you specify in the contract that delivery is contingent upon certain deliverables from the client. So for example, you would say that delivery will be 110 working hours after the drawing are delivered rather than on March 22. This puts the onus back on the client where it belongs. They know that if they don’t deliver what you need THEY won’t meet their delivery date. The other tack to take is IF they deliver the drawing late, THAN there will be some sort of penalty in order to meet the March 22 deadline. E.g.: the shop rate goes to a “rush status” which is 150% of the original contract in order for your people to work overtime. This way the client can make a decision: be on time with the drawing, or pay the penalty on order to meet the delivery schedule.The way to interleave multiple projects is to make sure each or your workers have an itemized and prioritized to-do list. Each step in the process needs to have someone assigned as responsible for it’s completion – only one person. If it has two people, then it needs to be broken into two steps. By doing this everyone knows “what’s next” and so can keep themselves fully tasked. It is up to the intake process to break up the job into steps, assign responsibility for each of them, and then distribute that responsibility to your workers.Regards,Kim Carleton GravesCarleton Woodworking
*"E.g.: the shop rate goes to a “rush status” which is 150% of the original contract in order for your people to work overtime."Excellent Point! I have seen him do this to several customers of his. Thanks.
*You are interested in job shop scheduling or project scheduling. Here are some ideas on theseAnyone who is interested in scheduling might benefit from and enjoy two books: The Goal and Critical Chain, both by Goldratt. They are novels, but they lay out many of the important issues in an intriguing way. My students always love The Goal, which is required reading (I teach operations management at miami university). Scheduling is pretty easy if processing times and other elements are known for certain in advance, but as others here have poined out, murphy always strikes. These 2 books (along with many others) discuss effectively scheduling in the presence of uncertainty (breakdowns, late deliveries, etc.).I think project managment tools would make the most sense for a wood shop. As mentioned earlier, MS Project would probably be a good resource. It does handle muliple projects (an earlier poster was not certain of this). I have some info on my website http://www.sba.muohio.edu/gattiktf/mgt302Every university with a business school has operations management and or decision sciences faculty, some of whom make a career out of work on scheduling problems. (I am one who does not.) So you could contact them. Many are often looking for research projects or student projects. Or try the extensions services of a big university, particularly in a furniture-making state.APICS http://www.apics.org (as others have mentioned is a great resource). There is also a project management institute.Scott, as many others have poined out, you can't make another shop follow a disciplined scheduling approach if they do not want to, so your new fee structure is a smart way to go. But i hope the above will be helpful in another situation or to others.
*FWIW,It happened again. I realized this yesterday while getting ready for work. I had received another set of drawings last week for a job that is also to be completed by Fri. March 22 (from the same shop), but I didn't remember getting material last week to do the job. Sure enough, when I got to the shop and checked we had not. Oh well, I guess the clock won't start ticking until I get material!
*Scott --Tom Gattiker has some great points in his post, and as a former project manager I've used MS Project and it is a very good tool.However, I also have to agree with something Kim Graves said toward the beginning of this thread: even though I didn't use MS Project for everything (especially smaller projects), just reading the manual gave me a sense of what to watch out for, issues, strategies, etc. That alone was probably worth the investment in the software.David
*I could elaborate a bit on something Kim stated: when a client asks about delivery dates, my answer is always stated as a time period from the point they fulfill their responsibilities. For example, "eight weeks from signed drawings." Making it clear that you will not begin work until you have all the information or materials you need is important, because people have an odd tendency to say, "just get started, and we can figure out the rest on the way." Switching gears unnecessarily in a shop can waste a great deal of money. A statement that work begins not with deposit, but final drawings (or whatever's relevant) on the initial invoice can go a long way...sb
*Kim and David mentioned reading the MS Project manual. In addition to this, MS Project has some really good tutorials accesible through the help menu ---to walk you through some project mgmt basics.
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