Session 2 - Important Slides

Question 1

What is the Difference between Planning and Scheduling?

Answer 1

Planning refers to establishing a set of tasks that need to be completed to achieve a desired goal + their assignment to the related people, teams etc.

Scheduling refers to the timing of what needs to be completed (It may also include things that are not directly associated with achieving a desired goal holidays etc.).

In essence: A plan may or may not have a “timing” associated with it, but scheduling is always about timing.

Question 2

What are the 4 fundamentals of General Supply Chain Matrix in order?

Answer 2

1) Procurement
2) Production
3) Distribution
4) Sales

Question 3

What is the scope of Procurement in 3 terms?

Answer 3

1)	Long-Term
>	Materials Programme
>	Supplier Selection
2)	Mid-Term
>	Material Requirements Planning
>	Contracts
3)	Short-Term
>	Personnel Planning
>	Ordering Materials

Question 4

What is the scope of Production in 3 terms?

Answer 4

1)	Long-Term
>	Plant Location
>	Production System
2)	Mid-Term
>	Master Production Scheduling
>	Capacity Planning
3)	Short-Term
>	Lot-Sizing
>	Machine Scheduling

Question 5

What is the scope of Distribution in 3 terms?

Answer 5

1)	Long-Term
>	Physical Distribution Structure
2)	Mid-Term
>	Distribution Planning
3)	Short-Term
>	Warehouse Replenishment
>	Transport Planning

Question 6

What is the scope of Sales in 3 terms?

Answer 6

1)	Long-Term
>	Product Programme
>	Strategic Sales Planning
2)	Mid-Term
>	Mid-Term Sales Planning
3)	Short-Term
>	Short-Term Sales Planning

Question 7

What is Partitioning K-Means?

Answer 7

Given a set of “n” distinct objects, this algorithm partitions these objects into “k” number of clusters, such that “intracluster similarity” is high but the intercluster similarity is low.

Question 8

What is Planning?

Answer 8

Planning is a support mechanism for decision-making that supports by identifying alternatives for future activities and selecting a good option

Question 9

What is Scheduling?

Answer 9

Determining when an activity should start or end, depending on its:
I.	Duration
II.	Predecessor Activity/Activities
III.	Predecessor Relationships
IV.	Resource Availability
V.	Target Completion Date of Task

Question 10

What is the concept of rolling horizons?

Answer 10

Within rolling horizons planning, updates of last planning runs are done on a certain frequence, whilst the actual month’s plan is held frozen. For example:
Frequency of planning: monthly
Planning horizon: 12 month plan, 1 month actual

Question 11

Event driven planning scenarios: What is event driven planning?

Answer 11

Ways of periodically replanning, but when there is a lot of change then there is too many plans and schedules (this is the risk)

Question 12

What makes the optimization problem hard to solve? Especially the TSP?

Answer 12

Increasing problem size (due to variables and constraints) often means increasing number of feasible solutions.
The 3rd constraint of TSP the elimination of sub-tours is a such constraint. This makes it hard to solve!