WATPASS

The development of a generic planning and scheduling system (WATPASS) to assist schedulers in small to medium sized job shops.

Job Shop Scheduling aims to create a sequence of tasks, the priorities or the list of subsequent activities in which work will be carried out on the shop floor. WATPASS was intended as a simple, interactive tool for finite-capacity job shop scheduling. WATPASS combined formal data (on customer orders, inventory, and machine routings) with the user's intuition, to create detailed production schedules.

The original version of WATPASS was a research tool, with a self-contained database. Realistic schedules could be created and revised in response to changes, e.g. arrival of subsequent orders, equipment failures, resulting delays.

Additional features that were later included enabled consideration of labour, tooling, cost and material constraints. Enhancement of those capabilities and further refinements would have required considerable financial and human resources. The software was thus transferred to a third-party firm who had the capital and commitment to do that development and marketing.