Production and manufacturing scheduling consultants
For make-to-order and high-mix manufacturers whose schedule doesn’t survive the first morning on the floor. We set the line’s pace, put buffer inventory where it belongs, and stay until your team runs it.
Talk to us How an engagement runsSigns you need help with production scheduling
- The schedule in the business system is ignored by mid-morning, and supervisors run the floor from a spreadsheet or a whiteboard.
- Expediting is the real priority system: whoever shouts loudest gets their order next.
- Every area looks busy, yet the orders due to ship are waiting for one missing part.
- Work in process is piling up, lead times are growing, and promising a ship date is guesswork.
- Overtime is the default answer to being late.
What we do
- Map how the plant really flows. Floor walk, interviews and your own data, drawn as a value stream map: where work waits, for how long, and why.
- Decide how to pace the line. From the map, choose the one point the schedule is set at, the pacemaker. Everything before it starts work only when it can flow; everything after it follows in sequence.
- Position buffer inventory on purpose. Hold stock where work waits and where it protects the pace and the delivery, and take it out everywhere else.
- Release only what can finish. Orders go to the floor when their kit is complete and the pacemaker is ready for them, not when a machine runs out of work.
- Run it every day. A short daily meeting that looks at buffer status, with an owner and a date for anything at risk.
The approach draws on lean value stream mapping, pacemaker scheduling and drum-buffer-rope. You don’t need to know any of those terms: the result is one pace for the whole line, a short list of what to release today, and buffers that tell the floor what needs help.
How we work
Diagnostic (fixed scope, fixed fee): the value stream mapped, where to pace the line and where to hold buffer inventory, and a go or no-go. Sprint (six weeks): the schedule set up at the pacemaker from your data, buffers positioned and sized, schedulers and supervisors trained, live on the floor. Run it: coaching until your team runs it, with results tracked against day one. See the full rollout.
Results from real plants
- Hand-tool manufacturer, two plants, high mix: forge output up 25%, and the retry rate at the slowest step down from 30–60% to under 2%, while running more than 40 people short. Read the case study.
- Make-to-order furniture manufacturer: on time in full from about 60%, with overtime, to 100%; inventory turns from 3.0 to 4.2; the best shipping month in company history three months after go-live. Read the case study.
Sources: the case-study pages linked above.
Consultant or scheduling software?
Software can calculate a schedule; it can’t decide where your line should be paced from, how much inventory to hold where, or get supervisors to trust the list. Most plants we meet already own a system that can schedule. What’s missing is the method and the daily habit. That is what we bring, and it works with the system you have.
Questions plant leaders ask
What does a production scheduling consultant do?
We work out how your plant really flows, decide where the line should be paced from and where buffer inventory belongs, set up a schedule your floor can follow, and coach your team until they run it without us. You end up with a working schedule and the habit of running it, not a report.
Do we have to buy scheduling software?
No. We don’t sell software. The schedule is built from the report exports of the business system you already have and runs alongside it.
How long does it take?
A fixed-scope Diagnostic first, then a six-week Sprint in which the new schedule goes live on your floor, then coaching until your team runs it.
What kind of plants do you work with?
Make-to-order and high-mix manufacturers, where orders compete for the same people and machines and due dates matter. Single plants and private equity portfolios.
How is this different from a planning or ERP consultant?
An ERP consultant configures the system. We change how the floor is paced: where the schedule is set, where inventory is held on purpose, and what gets released when. The system then supports that, instead of the floor working around it.
Do you work in Florida only?
No. We work with manufacturers across the United States, on site and remotely.
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