Planning and scheduling tool assistant

Abstract

Schedulers, Planners, and Maintenance Supervisors in an Industrial facility can use the user interface of the present invention to extremely quickly move work order schedules, status planning, and manage resources. Additionally, key performance indicators or metrics on performance on how well the organization is doing is also cumbersome if not impossible in the current practice in these industrial organizations. The variables of this management include worker, crew, Work Order, Dates, Planning Status, planner, dates, etc. (see tech manual and summary sheets). The invention operates by interfacing with the CMMS database in a thoroughly interactive process. The local program constructs a parallel database and reads and feedbacks to the CMMS database frequently to stay current and accurate.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A planning and scheduling system running on a computing device, the system comprising:
 work week sections;   a scheduled job section;   an unscheduled job section;   a short notice outage section;   a planned outage section; and   work orders, wherein the work orders can be moved from one work week section to another work week section, from unscheduled to scheduled, to short notice outage, to planned outage, and to backlog, by dragging and dropping the work orders.   
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the scheduled job section and unscheduled job section are simultaneously displayed to a user. 
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein when work orders are dropped into a work week section, real time indication of resource loading is determined. 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 3 , wherein the resource loading is determined based on whether a work group has been overloaded with too much work. 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein color coding indicates the status of planning the work order. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 5 , wherein the status includes whether the work order is complete and ready to work. 
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the system runs on a networked computer in communication with a database server. 
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising a user interface for displaying the work week sections, scheduled job section, unscheduled job section, short notice outage, planned outage, and work orders. 
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the system is used for scheduling and planning. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising a management control for executing the work week sections.