Program scheduling : decreasing flow by back-scheduling

Abstract

The Boeing 737 program has announced that they will continue to increase their production rate from 42 airplanes per month to eventually 52 airplanes per month. In order for the field to accommodate the increased production rates, opportunities are being considered for decreasing airplane production flow and the increasing capacity in the field. This thesis focuses on the opportunity for decreasing schedule flow through improvements in the scheduling process. Currently the field constraints do not heavily influence what order the planes roll out of the factory. This causes the field to deal with constraint variation by addressing the airplane schedule flow in order to make delivery. This thesis contributes to focusing on improving the scheduling process by driving more information being shared upstream in the decision making process and therefore decreasing the number of days needed to prepare the airplane for delivery.