TABLE OF CONTENTS Most schedulers and planners spend very little time actually scheduling and planning.
Production control is expected to work miracles, moderate the playground activities, orchestrate special events, and in general know everything for everyone.
The extended functions of production control rarely are officially recognized, rewarded, or taken into account for hiring, budgeting, staffing, or training purposes.
In Chapter 3, we discussed the roles and objectives associated with production control. Simply put, the objective is to foresee future troubles and discount them. This is the primary objective of production control, but does not describe adequately what its complete role or customary function is. What do schedulers and planners do and why do they do it? The answer to these two questions is obvious to some: the function is to create schedules for others to follow.
If you agree with this assessment create schedules, please visit a factory and observe the production control department. You are probably not a planner or scheduler. And no, we do not mean at 9 AM, or whenever you usually start work, but when the schedulers and planners actually start work at 5 AM, 6 AM, or whenever it is. Their day and work are basically over by the time other folks normally start. To observe production control and understand its function requires you to be there when the action is happening. If they say that they start at 6 AM, be there at 5:45 AM since it is likely...
