Finite-Capacity Scheduler

The problem this kills

Most production "schedules" are a fantasy. The spreadsheet lists every open work order with a start date of today, as if every machine could run all of it at once. Then reality hits: the press is booked solid for two weeks, three jobs are already late, and the only person who knows the real sequence keeps it in their head. When that person is out, the floor guesses.

The missing idea is finite capacity - the simple truth that a work center has only so many hours per day, and you can't schedule more work into a shift than the shift actually holds. Without it, due dates are wishful thinking and you find out a job is late the day it ships.

This tool replaces the fantasy with a schedule that respects the clock: each work center's real shifts, hours, and downtime, with jobs sequenced one after another inside the hours that actually exist.

What you'll build

A small web app, just for your team, that:

• Imports your open work orders (run time, setup time, due date, priority) and your work-center calendar (shifts, hours, planned downtime) from CSV or a Google Sheet.
• Sequences jobs onto each work center by your rule - priority and due date - forward from today or backward from the due date, whichever you schedule by.
• Fits each job into the real available hours, so nothing is scheduled into a shift that's already full or into planned downtime.
• Flags overloads (work centers asked to do more than they can) and projected-late jobs (jobs that finish after their due date) so they jump out at you.
• Shows capacity utilization % per work center so you can see who's slammed and who has room.
• Lets a scheduler review, adjust, and approve the proposed schedule before it becomes the published working plan.
• Exports the approved schedule CSV and a per-work-center load view in the exact columns your floor and ERP expect.

What's inside the Implementation Plan

The plan is a single file you paste into an AI coding agent (Claude Code). It walks the agent through building the whole tool, step by step, with a ready-to-copy prompt at the end of each step.

The very first thing it does is interview you about your business - how you schedule today, which ERP or spreadsheets you use, what your work orders and work centers are actually named, your typical and peak job volumes, whether you forward- or back-schedule, and your messy exceptions (split jobs, rush orders, shared machines, overtime). It reflects a short tailored spec back to you and waits for your thumbs-up before building anything, so you get a scheduler shaped around your shop - not a generic template.

From there it builds the data model, the import-and-validate step, the scheduling engine, the overload and late-job flags, the review-and-approve screen, and the CSV exports - and ends with a clear "how to know it works" checklist.

The governance it includes (this is the point)

A schedule is a decision the whole floor follows, so the tool is built to be trustworthy from day one:

• Login so only your team can open it.
• Row-level security so you only ever see your own organization's jobs and work centers.
• A complete audit trail - who imported what, who changed a sequence, who approved, and when.
• A hard human-in-the-loop approval gate: the engine proposes a schedule, a scheduler reviews the overloads and late jobs, adjusts, and only an approved schedule becomes the published working plan.
• Duplicate guards keyed on work order + operation, so the same job can't be loaded onto the board twice.

Who it's for

Production schedulers and planners who own the daily/weekly schedule for a shop floor - and anyone tired of a "schedule" that ignores how many hours a machine actually has. If you can fill in a spreadsheet, you can build and run this.

You've got this - paste the first prompt and let the agent interview you.