Work when ready load balancing using critical dates

Abstract

A method of balancing workload using critical dates and including the following steps: (a) assigning a promised delivery date to orders received from customers; (b) identifying one or more tasks associated with each of the orders; (c) assigning an expedited date or a customer requested date to each of the tasks of some of the orders; (d) determining a work start date for each of the one or more tasks in each of the orders; (e) assigning a first priority to tasks having a work start date D; (f) assigning a second priority to tasks scheduled to begin on day D+n and having the expedited date; (g) assigning a third priority to tasks scheduled to begin on day D+n and having the customer requested date; (h) setting n equal to a value of 1; (i) working on tasks during a work shift based on order of priority, wherein work on a lower priority task is not commenced until work on all tasks with higher priorities has been completed; (j) increasing n by an increment of 1; and (k) repeating steps (g), (h), (i), (j) and (k) until the work shift for day D has ended.