There are a wide variety of systems on the market and the canned systems are almost useless in terms of accomplishing true goal oriented scheduling. An out of the box scheduling system can be a great communication tool. It will allow your team to coomunicate the schedule electronically which is half of the game but it might not display the data that your team really needs and it definitely will not address complex scheduling goals.

Scheduling goals vary a great deal as you compare one company to another. Most companies are concerned with timelines and ontime delivery. Another very common need is the ability for the customer service department to gauge capacity for new jobs and available to promise capabilities for their customers. Efficiency gains are often possible with good scheduling systems. The system sequences the product mix in an efficient manner to eliminate change-over expense. Other goals include energy reduction and production mixes that aid in transportation schedules. Most of these goals are way beyond what one could ever hope to do with a canned system.

If you're interested in some more information on Scheduling Software you should check out this article. Scheduling systems are evolving quickly so there are always a lot of new articles on the web. Another good article on production scheduling can be found on the Tuppas blog. This is worth reading if you're looking at Tuppas or if you're interested in a Thin Client Solution.