Issues and opportunities regarding replanning and rescheduling frequencies

Research in the various planning and scheduling literatures has reached contradictory conclusions about the impact of frequently replanning and rescheduling material flows in response to updated supply and demand information. Furthermore, empirical research shows that companies that frequently reschedule perform better, despite some theoretical research that has discouraged high frequencies. Resolving these issues has great theoretical and practical importance, especially with the increasing prevalence of technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) that provide more timely information for replanning and rescheduling systems. Insights from supply chain, internal planning (e.g. master production scheduling and material requirements planning), and shop floor scheduling research streams are synthesised to show that model attributes typical to each research stream may play a significant role in the differing conclusions about ideal frequencies. Future research is suggested to help clarify the ideal use and overall value of timely information, narrow the research-practice gap, and resolve discrepancies between the different research streams.