A Common Error in Production Scheduling

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Abstract
Many production scheduling systems use schedules of planned start/finish times for jobs up to a given planning horizon which includes the period between rescheduling operations. The integrity and usefulness of such schedules depends on the accuracy of the estimated time data which is available on the operations to be performed. There is a widespread belief that "on the average" if errors in the estimated time data are not biased then they will balance out and the schedules will give a reasonable plan for the period between rescheduling operations. This paper uses the elementary theory of the simple random walk to show that this assumption is not valid and that scheduling systems based upon it will not make sufficient allowance for the relatively highly probable events of permanent under-schedule or over-schedule conditions.

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