A heuristic scheduling system for ceramic industrial coatings

We developed and implemented a heuristic-based scheduling system for Cerami c Industrial Coatings (CIC), a large producer of paint and wood coatings in the Midwest. We experienced implementation issues and problems in the proc ess of developing the heuristic system. The paint coating industry has uniq ue scheduling problems. Results included a 39-percent reduction in manufact uring processing time, a 23-percent reduction in late batches, a 49-percent reduction in scrapped batches, and a 72-percent reduction in scrap cost.