Analyzing scheduling in the food-processing industry: Structure and tasks

Production scheduling has been widely studied in several research areas, resulting in a large number of methods, prescriptions, and approaches. However, the impact on scheduling practice seems relatively low. This is also the case in the food-processing industry, where industry-specific characteristics induce specific and complex scheduling problems. Based on ideas about decomposition of the scheduling task and the production process, we develop an analysis methodology for scheduling problems in food processing. This combines an analysis of structural (technological) elements of the production process with an analysis of the tasks of the scheduler. This helps to understand, describe, and structure scheduling problems in food processing, and forms a basis for improving scheduling and applying methods developed in literature. It also helps in evaluating the organisational structures and information flows related to scheduling.