A review and classification of computer-based manufacturing scheduling tools

•We present a systematic review of computer-based manufacturing scheduling tools.•A classification framework based on functionalities of reviewed tools is proposed.•Tools are classified according to the framework and their main issues are discussed.•Several relevant issues still not properly addressed in the tools are detected.•A number of conclusions and open issues are identified and discussed.

Computer-based manufacturing scheduling tools can play a key role in the management of industrial operations, as obtaining economic and reliable schedules is at the core of excellence in customer service and of efficiency in manufacturing companies. As a consequence, this topic has been receiving an increasing interest in the last decades, resulting in a number of case studies and descriptions of implementation of these tools. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no review of these cases in order to classify existing references and to identify relevant issues still not properly addressed. Therefore, in this paper we carry out a systematic review of case studies of manufacturing scheduling tools. In order to provide a coherent taxonomy for the analysis of these tools, we develop a classification based on the functionalities of the manufacturing scheduling tools. Using this framework, existing contributions are classified and discussed, and a number of conclusions and open issues are identified. We hope that our work can establish a coherent picture of the topic so it serves as a starting point for future research.