{"id":651,"date":"2023-10-02T02:29:59","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T02:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/?page_id=651"},"modified":"2023-12-07T21:13:51","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T21:13:51","slug":"spike-detection-and-levelling-application","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/?page_id=651","title":{"rendered":"Spike Detection and Levelling Application"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nigel found Sarah shuffling through an improbably large stack of papers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSarah,\u201d he said firmly, \u201cWe need to do something about the late jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know,\u201d Sarah growled in frustration. \u201cIt seems like I spend all my time reworking schedules, and everything is still late! This morning I had to tell the sales team to stop selling for a week, just so my people can catch up a little! That was not a fun conversation to have, believe me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nigel nodded sympathetically. \u201cI\u2019m sure it wasn\u2019t. But\u2026 this might be more serious than the sales team having to work on their suntans for a week. It\u2019s playing havoc with our financial situation, too. We have to pay to expedite work, we have to pay penalties when jobs are late, and our sales margins are falling. Customers are demanding discounts because they think we are unreliable! This is killing us, Sarah!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sarah shoved the stack of papers to one side and turned to face Nigel. \u201cI know, Nigel. Really and truly, I know. That\u2019s what all these papers are about. We don\u2019t have a smooth flow of work, alright? Some weeks are busier than others, sometimes the sales team has good days and bad days, and so on. So, I look at all the orders that are coming up, and if I see a big one that\u2019s going to be due soon, I schedule it to start as soon as possible. Too many times I have seen big jobs like this, which look good on paper, wreck everything as we muscle them through operations. We can’t go on making these trails of carnage in our business!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nigel frowned. \u201cYes, that\u2019s common sense. Why do we end up with late jobs, then?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarah sighed. \u201cWhen there\u2019s a big job coming, we schedule it to start as soon as possible. But that means other jobs, due at the same time, get scheduled to start after the big job\u2026 and sometimes, those jobs that get started later have due dates before the big job. But we can\u2019t start on them before the big one is finished, so they just get delayed unless we pay extra to expedite something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cOkay, but you\u2019ve got people standing idle at times. Can\u2019t they just start on these big jobs, no matter what the schedule is doing, so that we don\u2019t have everything being late all of the time?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarah frowned at Nigel. \u201cDo I have to tell you about constraint scheduling again?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cActually\u2026 yeah, maybe you do. Or at least tell me why it\u2019s relevant to this problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, you know the glass ovens, the ones that always have a backlog to clear. They are our constraint and we are scheduling the jobs they work on, so that they don\u2019t get overwhelmed, and they need to produce jobs in the right sequence or we can never deliver on time. That\u2019s the theory, anyway.\u201d Sarah explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nigel shook his head, confused. \u201cSo, what does that have to do with getting anyone idle to start on these big jobs? If they\u2019re idle, they\u2019re not the constraint, and they may as well be doing something useful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause the job doesn\u2019t stay with them! Sooner or later, these \u2018non-constraints\u2019 finish what they can do, and then the constraint operation gets a huge job dumped on it out of nowhere!\u201d Sarah said. \u201cAnd that blows the schedule to tiny bits. Other jobs which are due in the oven before it aren\u2019t ready because the big job having been pushed in front of them. So many times the oven operators have complained that they can’t clear the ‘must process this today’ jobs because the big one gets priority. It damn well overloads the constraint, and you know this. As if that wasn\u2019t enough there\u2019s no way the big job can get done on time anyway, because extra time for it wasn\u2019t allocated in the schedule!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nigel opened his mouth to object, then closed it again. The situation Sarah had just described clearly wasn\u2019t an improvement on the current situation, and Sarah was equally clearly doing her best to keep things running. \u201cSo\u2026 are we stuck with it, then?\u201d he asked eventually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, not at all!\u201d Sarah was starting to get a bit sarcastic. \u201cIf you can just get sales to let me know about orders six months in advance, and with due dates at least three months out, and then not change anything, I reckon I can sort out a schedule that can get everything done on time. Otherwise, yeah, we\u2019re stuck with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd there\u2019s really nothing that would help with the scheduling issues?\u201d Nigel persisted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot unless you\u2019ve got a couple of big buckets full of time you can pour all over this dumpster fire,\u201d Sarah said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t, then \u2013\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHang on a second. That might actually be the answer\u2026\u201d Nigel said slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now it was Sarah\u2019s turn to be confused. \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBuckets!\u201d Nigel said excitedly. \u201cBig buckets of time! That\u2019s what we\u2019ll use!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarah shook her head. \u201cNigel, I have no idea what you\u2019re saying. Can you break it down for me, please?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven better! We\u2019ll do that too, and put the resulting smaller jobs, the \u2019chunks\u2019 in the buckets! Sarah, you\u2019re a genius! We know how much the ovens can process in a day, we just need to make sure the jobs are chunked to fit in these one-day buckets, with no overload.\u201d Nigel was almost laughing with delight, but he eventually calmed down enough to explain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSorry about that, but it really is exciting. Look, the reason you want six months\u2019 warning of jobs is because you\u2019re trying to schedule the constraint for everything that comes in, in due date order, so it completes in time, right?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, that\u2019s right.\u201d Sarah nodded slowly. \u201cBut I still don\u2019t see what\u2013 \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nigel cut her off. \u201cAnd the reason that never works is that due dates change and big spikes of work arrive unexpectedly, and you spend all your time creating schedules that are out of date before you\u2019ve finished.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, that\u2019s what I\u2019ve been saying. What\u2019s your point?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe use buckets,\u201d Nigel explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne bucket is what\u2019s due for release in the next day, another is for what\u2019s due in the following week. We don\u2019t fiddle with those two unless there\u2019s a genuine emergency. Another bucket is for what\u2019s due in the next two weeks, we pick from that to choose what goes into the next week\u2019s bucket. And the third bucket is for the next month, say \u2013 the exact numbers aren\u2019t too important. What is important is that you can still schedule the constraint, and you\u2019ve got advance warning of anything big coming up for release and whether it will overload the schedules when released. That gives you time to break the bigger jobs up into chunks \u2013 great idea, by the way, I\u2019m glad you mentioned it \u2013 and schedule them, so that we don\u2019t get huge spikes of work wrecking our lovely system. Even if we have to call a customer occasionally and reschedule the job, that\u2019s still better than delivering late.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sarah nodded. \u201cThat sounds good. We\u2019d have to try it, and I think there\u2019d be a lot fewer problems with lead time if we did that, and we wouldn\u2019t get overloaded anywhere near as much.\u201d She turned back to her papers with a renewed sense of purpose and waved a hand dismissively at Nigel. \u201cGet out of my hair. I\u2019ve got some buckets to build.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next month, Nigel started to see the results of the bucket idea \u2013 or, as he described it in meetings, their \u2018Spike Detection and Levelling\u2019 system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It hadn\u2019t worked out well at first. Somehow things still got overloaded, to the point shere Nigel had thought they would have to give up on the whole idea. But Sarah could be very determined when she was hunting something down, and eventually, she discovered that the sales team had been closing large multi-day jobs and giving customers a discount based on order size. Even worse, sometimes they made the sale by promising a rush order. Fixing that meant making the buckets visible to sales and editing the rules around discounting. And after that had been fixed things improved rapidly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarah\u2019s predictions had been correct, the lead times are a lot more reliable now, and the factory seems to get overloaded less. Even big orders \u2013 spikes \u2013 are getting done on time, there are fewer of them reaching the \u2018release today\u2019 bucket, and they are no longer affecting the completion of other jobs anywhere near as badly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From his perspective as finance manager, Nigel could see other benefits too. Spending on expediting was down significantly, and sales were back selling, income was improving slowly and steadily;  customers were realising that Glassware Solutions really could be relied upon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps most interestingly, Nigel had found the sales manager looking thoughtfully at the bucket diagrams a couple of days ago. She had commented that there were some gaps in the buckets, and she wanted to see if her sales team could reliably fill them up further in advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All things considered; it was like finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Nigel was starting to think that there might be some helpful spirits out there as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nigel found Sarah shuffling through an improbably large stack of papers. \u201cSarah,\u201d he said firmly, \u201cWe need to do something about the late jobs.\u201d \u201cI know,\u201d Sarah growled in frustration. \u201cIt seems like I spend all my time reworking schedules, and everything is still late! This morning I had to tell the sales team to …<\/p>\n

Spike Detection and Levelling Application<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-651","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=651"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2514,"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/651\/revisions\/2514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}