The Human Planning and Scheduling Role in Advanced Manufacturing Systems: An Emerging Human Factors Domain

Abstract

Advanced manufacturing technology is quickly displacing humans from the factory floor, but relatively little is known about how much responsibility humans should retain over plant operation. Scheduling operations are particularly critical to maintaining overall manufacturing system performance, and many researchers argue that humans should be retained in the control loop for this task. This paper critically reviews work done over the last 25 years on human scheduling abilities. The increasing amount of empirical work on human scheduling ability is widely dispersed, and many researchers are not aware of one another's work. Current work on manufacturing scheduling, field studies, and laboratory work on human scheduling abilities are reviewed. Methodological and conceptual problems are highlighted. The intention is to provide a sounder basis for future research on the human scheduling role by providing knowledge of what has been examined in the past and an awareness of the important issues for the future