A History of Production Scheduling

This chapter describes the history of production scheduling in manufacturing facilities over the last 100 years. Understanding the ways that production scheduling has been done is critical to analyzing existing production scheduling systems and finding ways to improve them. The chapter covers not only the tools used to support decision-making in real-world production scheduling but also the changes in the production scheduling systems. This story goes from the first charts developed by Henry Gantt to advanced scheduling systems that rely on sophisticated algorithms. The goal of the chapter is to help production schedulers, engineers, and researchers understand the true nature of production scheduling in dynamic manufacturing systems and to encourage them to consider how production scheduling systems can be improved even more. This chapter not only reviews the range of concepts and approaches used to improve production scheduling but also demonstrates their timeless importance.