Deploying scheduling solutions in an industrial environment

For many industrial sites, a production scheduling solution - be it manual or optimized - is in many ways still a complex and “exotic” application that seldomly finds its way into the daily practice of the plant floor. As it lies within the interface between business and control systems, scheduling is too often seen as something decoupled and theoretical that requires high-level experts for configuring, using and maintaining it. In this paper, we discuss some of the challenges and hurdles for deploying scheduling solutions. A relevant ongoing technological transition towards stronger integration is also addressed. Some potential for improvements are identified both in academia and industry. By addressing the main pain points it can be seen that with a common mind-set the complexity of deploying a scheduling solution can be lowered significantly.