Moving from spreadsheets to finite-capacity scheduling

Signs you have outgrown the spreadsheet

• Only one person knows which line can run which product.
• Run lengths are recalculated by hand whenever a quantity or rate changes.
• Changeovers are remembered, not planned, so promise dates slip by a shift at a time.
• A rush order means overwriting cells, and nobody can see which deliveries moved.
• Labels and run paperwork are retyped from the schedule.

What finite-capacity scheduling means

Infinite-capacity planning asks whether there are enough hours in total. Finite-capacity scheduling places each run on a specific line at a specific time, so two runs cannot occupy the same line at once, runs stay inside that line’s shift hours, and setup time between runs takes up real line time.

The data to gather first

• Lines and their shift calendars.
• Your active product list.
• Which lines can run which products.
• Each line’s rate for each product, in one consistent unit (for example feet per hour, or pounds per hour with a weight-per-foot conversion).
• Changeover minutes for each product-to-product switch on each line. Start with the switches that happen most often; a blank pair makes that switch look shorter than it really is.
• Open orders with quantities and due dates.

Run a one-week pilot

1. Pick one week of real orders and the lines they run on.
2. Enter the lines, products, eligibility, rates, and changeover times for just those lines.
3. Import the open orders from Excel.
4. Generate the schedule and compare it with what the spreadsheet planned. Where they disagree, check whether a rate or changeover time is wrong.
5. Run the week from the new schedule, then widen to the rest of the plant.

Common pitfalls

• Mixing units: demand in feet, rate in pounds per hour, with no conversion.
• Using one plant-wide average rate instead of a rate per line and product.
• Leaving changeover times blank. RunMark warns when a line that runs several products has none entered.
• Expecting the scheduler to know resin, color, or die rules on its own. It knows only the eligibility, rates, and changeover minutes you enter.

Where RunMark fits

RunMark is finite-capacity line scheduling and traceability labels for process manufacturers running roughly 2–20 lines. Its optimizer places orders on eligible lines inside shift hours, reserves changeover time before each run, weighs due dates and changeover time when choosing slots, and can split an order too large for one slot across lines. It does not do BOMs, purchasing, or multi-step routings, and it does not search for the sequence with the least total changeover across the week.

It costs $249/month or $2,490/year, flat, with unlimited lines, orders, and SKUs (up to 5 team members on monthly, unlimited on yearly), after a 30-day free trial with no credit card.

Frequently asked questions