Resource Scheduling
Your production plan tells you what to make. Resource scheduling answers the next question: when can you actually make it? To run a job you need a machine free, someone to run it, somewhere to do it, and the right tools to hand. This area lets you book those things onto a timeline, so the plan on the screen is the plan you can really keep.
This page explains the ideas in plain terms. The step-by-step guides for each screen are linked at the bottom.
Availability depends on your plan and your role.
The four kinds of resource
A resource is anything a job needs a slot of time on. Bizconnekt sorts them into four kinds, described the way you'd describe them out loud.
| Kind | What it is | Real-world example |
|---|---|---|
| Machine | A piece of equipment that does work. | A lathe, an injection-moulding press, an oven |
| Labour | A person or a team who does work. | A welder, the assembly line, the finishing crew |
| Facility | A place work happens in. | The paint booth, the clean room, Bay 3 |
| Tool | A tool or fixture a job needs while it runs. | A die, a jig, a mould |
Each resource can carry a rate — what it costs, usually per hour — so the time a job spends on it can be costed. And each resource can be given one or more skills (see below), so the schedule always books something that can actually do the work.
Skills: pick a capability, not a name
A skill is a capability a resource has — like "Welder", "CNC Turning" or "Powder Coating". You keep a simple list of the skills your business uses, and then tag each resource with the ones it has.
Why it matters: when a stage of a job needs "a welder", it looks for that skill rather than for one particular person you typed in by hand. So the job always finds the right people and machines — and if your usual welder is on leave, anyone else carrying the Welder skill can take the work. You choose skills from your list instead of typing them freely, so "Welder", "welder" and "Welding" never drift into three different things.
Calendars: when a resource is available
A working calendar sets the hours a resource is open for work — which days of the week, what hours in the day, and any holidays or planned shutdowns. Attach a calendar to a resource and the schedule knows it can't book that resource on a Sunday, a public holiday, or during a factory shutdown week.
Different resources can follow different calendars — the day shift and the night shift, or a machine that's offline every Friday for servicing.
The schedule board, and the promise it keeps
You place jobs in time on a schedule board — a timeline where each booking sits in its slot, so you can see at a glance what's running when, and what's still free.
Here is the one benefit that makes the whole thing worth it: double-booking is prevented. The same machine cannot be booked for two jobs in the same slot. If you try, Bizconnekt refuses it. So the plan on your board is always a plan you can actually keep — never a wish list that quietly overlaps.
Every reason a resource is busy is a booking
A booking simply reserves a resource for a slot of time. It isn't only for production runs. Anything that makes a resource unavailable is recorded the same way:
- a production job running on it,
- machine set-up or changeover time,
- planned maintenance or servicing,
- a worker on leave,
- an unplanned breakdown.
Because every one of these is a booking, the board always reflects reality — not just the jobs, but the gaps too.
When you really do have several of the same thing
Sometimes you own several identical resources — say six identical moulds. You can tell Bizconnekt how many you actually have, and it will allow that many bookings in the same slot, but no more. So six jobs can share the moulds at once; a seventh is refused, because there's no seventh mould.
How it fits with the rest of production
Resource scheduling sits alongside your work orders. A work order is the job to be made; its process steps are the stages that job goes through. Resource scheduling is where you book the machines, people, facilities and tools those stages need, and decide when they run.
Getting started
| Task | Guide |
|---|---|
| Add machines, people, facilities and tools | Resources, rates and skills |
| Set when a resource is available | Working calendar |
| Place a job on the timeline | Schedule board |
Related guides
- Production — how work orders and processes fit together
- Work Order — the job to be made
- WO Process — the stages a job passes through
- Stores & Inventory — where the materials a job consumes are kept
Need help? Contact support at support@bizconnekt.com