Three disruptions, one schedule

On a process site, your schedule is already wrong by 9:00 a.m. A reactor goes down. A lab result comes back late. A filtration runs long. Any one of these can push a batch release late and leave equipment standing idle. In the next four minutes, I'll show you how Bodhee Production Scheduling handles all three in one schedule.

This is this week's plan for an API line: two reactors, a filter dryer, a centrifuge, a micronizer, and packing. Every step has its equipment, its time, and its link to the next step. Watch this API batch. It goes from the reactor to the filter dryer to the micronizer, and it must be packed by Thursday.

Bodhee built this plan around equipment availability, the order of the steps, the lab checks each batch has to pass, and whether the materials are ready. And this is a detailed schedule. Every task on every piece of equipment also has its operators assigned: people who are on shift, qualified for that task, and inside their workload limit. So this plan works for the equipment and for the people who run it.

Now, let's see what happens when the day goes wrong.

It's 6:00 a.m. Maintenance reports a fault on reactor A05. It needs six hours of repair once today's batch finishes its reaction. With a spreadsheet, the planner now spends the morning working out what this touches. In Bodhee, you lock the repair window, and then you reschedule.

Bodhee re-solves against every live constraint, keeps work in progress where it is, and moves only what the event touches. The batch running now finishes as planned. No other reactor is qualified for this step, so Bodhee doesn't force a move. The next batch waits for the reactor and starts as soon as it's back. Its centrifuge step moves along with it, so the centrifuge team sees the new time now, not when the batch fails to arrive. The planner checks the change and approves it. A new plan in minutes, not hours.

It's 7:00 a.m. Our API batch has finished crystallization and cooling. Now it waits in the reactor for an in-process check. The result will come at 12 p.m. That's three hours late. The shift lead extends the hold. Then he reschedules. Filtration can't start until the result is in, so filtration moves, and drying, micronizing and packaging move after it. The reactor stays blocked while the batch waits in it, so nothing gets planned into it. And you see the effect on Thursday's packing now, at 7:00 a.m., not at the end of the shift when it's too late to act.

It's 1:00 p.m. The QC result came in and production has resumed. Filtration is running, but it's running slow. It will finish two hours late. The shift lead logs the delay. Then he reschedules. Vacuum drying moves back two hours, and so do the drying check, the micronizer, and packing. Some of these tasks now fall into the next shift, so Bodhee checks their operators again, so someone qualified is on shift at the new time. The next batch on the filter dryer stays where it was. There was room in the plan to absorb the delay, and the planner gets the answer that matters: Thursday still holds.

So that's three events handled in one schedule. When the reactor went down, the next batch waited for it and the centrifuge moved with it. When the lab result was late, the reactor stayed blocked and you saw the effect on Thursday right away. When filtration ran over, Thursday still held. Each time, Bodhee changed only what the event touched. Work in progress stayed where it was, and the planner made the final call.

On the sites where we work, rescheduling goes from hours to minutes, and planners spend 60 to 80% less effort on scheduling. Every site's worst week is different. Maybe it's a long changeover, a short crew, or a late release. Share yours with us. We'll model your line, then show you Bodhee running on it. Request a demo at bodhee.com/demo.