Lesson

E3 Define the Scope of a Disruption Response

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Faster Recalculation Still Needs an Appropriate Scope

After a machine problem, recalculating the entire plan may change tasks with materials prepared, tooling installed or instructions already issued. Alongside computation time, consider the cost of changing execution.

This discussion exercise assumes WC-1 will stop in the afternoon. J1 has started, J2 has materials and tooling confirmed, and J3 is unreleased. Actual freezing and transfer mechanisms depend on the application and model.

Classify the Work

Category	Basis	Information to retain
Freeze	Already executing or expensive to change, where conditions permit	Fixed objects, periods, resources or sequence scope
Retain	The existing arrangement remains valid	Original version and conditions supporting it
Recalculate	Affected work requires adjustment	Permitted changes, resources, objectives and constraints

Freezing does not override a physical outage. If started work cannot continue, confirm safe handling and actual shop-floor state before updating inputs. Keeping a plan unchanged cannot restore an unavailable machine.

Map the Impact

Find tasks overlapping the outage, then follow operation dependencies, shared resources, material allocations and delivery commitments. The effect may extend beyond WC-1 or remain limited to a few unreleased tasks. Record the relationships that justify the recalculation scope.

Design Two Candidate Responses

Response L retains confirmed work where possible and reschedules affected unreleased tasks. Response W permits broader changes. Compare delivery and output together with changed-task counts, setup preparation, resource coordination and new risks.

Participants first confirm the outage and affected work, then use supported data, rule and planning-linkage interfaces to prepare the two configurations. This exercise uses manual identification and confirmed recalculation; it does not include automatic disruption detection or fully automated reconstruction.

Explain the Choice

If L meets key commitments with little operational change, it may fit the circumstances. If it cannot accommodate the affected work, broader adjustment may be necessary. Base the choice on constraints, feasibility and implementation cost rather than assuming local changes are always superior.

Exercise and Review

“Started,” “materials ready” and “unreleased” do not uniquely determine a response. Establish how each task relates to the outage window first.

The following classroom conditions and proposed responses provide a worked example for discussion and review.

Task	Added condition	Proposed treatment	What would change the decision?
J1	Expected to finish before the afternoon outage; operations confirms it can continue as planned	Retain the arrangement and track completion	Progress slips into the outage window, requiring a new operational decision
J2	Planned on WC-1 during the outage, with no approved alternative	Hold that arrangement and check recovery time and due date before recalculating	An alternative resource is approved, or the outage window changes
J3	Uses independent WC-2; its materials and tooling are unaffected	Retain the plan and follow the original release checks	A shared tool, predecessor or material allocation proves affected

Without recovery time, remaining processing and alternative-resource information, list the questions to resolve rather than assigning an unsupported completion time.

Extend the table with affected objects, fixed and adjustable conditions, comparison measures and approvers. After an actual recalculation, check that commitments are preserved and task changes have reasons. Update conditions that no longer hold instead of mechanically retaining the original arrangement.