Scheduling coordination problems in supply chain planning

Scheduling algorithms and their role in supply chain planning are topics that have been discussed in scheduling literature for many years. Based on examples and experience with commercial supply chain planning software, this paper presents background information about production planning and scheduling functionality in commercial supply chain planning software and interesting scheduling coordination problems in supply chain planning for researchers. We first provide an overview of different planning activities in supply chain planning, while taking into consideration existing functionalities that are available in commercial supply chain planning software. As a second step, we show three scheduling coordination problems in supply chain planning, namely the integration of production planning and production scheduling, the integration of sales order confirmation and production scheduling and the integration of VMI planning and production scheduling. We conclude this paper with a detailed discussion of an implementation of a supply chain planning solution at the tissue producer SCA Hygiene in Sweden.