Conclusions

Manufacturing shop floor scheduling is a vast and, above all, disparate field, in which relatively simple requirements coexist with much more complex ones.

This disparity is mirrored in research, where the scheduling problem is posed in terms of optimization, interactivity, visualization and distributed resolution.

As in many fields, it's important to identify your needs precisely before looking for tools to solve a problem. One of the first points to consider, of course, is whether you're faced with a one-off problem (i.e. trying to find an immutable order for sequencing operations on a machine) or a recurring one. If it's a one-off problem, we'll certainly be looking at a scheduling "study", and if it's a recurring problem, we'll be looking at a market product.

Similarly, specialized scheduling software does not...