I started taking a few bites out of a job shop scheduling solution that's been in the back of my mind for ages. I tend to end up doing general geek stuff for s

I started taking a few bites out of a job shop scheduling solution that's been in the back of my mind for ages. I tend to end up doing general geek stuff for small manufacturing businesses. At a certain point they always ask about scheduling automation because their one person who runs the shop can't keep track of everything any more. The existing scheduling solutions are either too far down the rabbit hole of job-shop-scheduling yak shaving to fit or attached to an ERP that's out of their price range for a while. In this case scheduling automation doesn't have to be perfect. It shouldn't be, it's a waste of time. These users haven't grown into habits that fit an optimized solution; their manufacturing data has been treated as an arcane nuisance because it hasn't provided benefits yet. All they need is something basic to get them started on the way to better habits and improving their data while improving scheduling. I don't know how far I'll get, but it's cathartic and educational to work on for now.