Discussion Questions
1. What types of scheduling decisions are management
likely to encounter in the following operations? De–
scribe the scheduling decisions in terms of the types of
resources to be scheduled and the associated customers
or jobs scheduled.
a. Hospital
b. University
c. Moviemaking
d. Make-to-order factory
2. Specify the kinds of objectives that might be appropri–
ate for each of the situations listed in question 1.
3. Why is it important to view a batch-process operation
as a network of interconnected queues?
4. How is the scheduling of patients in a doctor’s clinic simi–
lar to and different from the scheduling of jobs in a factory?
5. Describe the differences between Gantt charting, FCS,
and the theory of constraints.
6. Why are m × n machine-scheduling algorithms not
widely used in practice?
7. What is the purpose of a planning and control system
related to scheduling?
8. What is the goal as stated by the theory of constraints
(TOC), and how is that goal achieved?
9. What is the definition of a bottleneck according to
TOC?
10. What scheduling rule should be applied to bottleneck
work centers, and what scheduling rule should be ap–
plied to nonbottleneck work centers?
11. What measures can be taken to provide more capacity
at a bottleneck work center?
