Q11 What scheduling rule should be applied to bottleneck wor

Q11. What scheduling rule should be applied to bottleneck work centers, and what scheduling rule should be applied to non-bottleneck work centers?

Solution

Non-Bottleneck resources should be scheduled in such a way that the bottleneck is not starving or short of materials. Bottleneck should be kept busy processing the orders needed for sale. A queue should be formed at the bottleneck to insure that it stays busy. Non-Bottleneck resources only process enough to keep the bottleneck busy and hence they do not operate at full capacity. Thus, non-bottleneck work centers may have idle time in their schedules. Non-bottleneck recourses should not produce inventory just to increase resource utilization. They should be idle when their capacity is not needed to supply the bottleneck. Bottlenecks are scheduled to maximize flow, and non-bottlenecks are scheduled to keep the bottleneck busy.