I'm looking for tips from you all who manage production in busy shops, especially when your shop is pushing a lot of complex and varied jobs through.
I manage the production at a facility that produces 50-100 cabinets/week as well as selling CNC sheet good parts to fellow cabinetmakers in the area. I usually have about 7 people out on the shop floor doing production. We do not produce doors/dovetails/moldings, we outsource those. We do our own finishing.
When a job is handed to me to begin production, I have sufficient time to order paint, edgeband, and specialty sheet goods. I also get all of the necessary cut lists and CNC nests. Most of the jobs, lately, have been large houses with 6-12 rooms, frequently with a different combination of paint, sheetgoods, edgeband colors.
In my case, I am given all the cut lists/nests in a folder along with a copy of the job drawings. It's my responsibility to delegate the production of these lists and to orchestrate the timing such that everything is ready for cabinet assembly.
How are you all handing this out to the shop, and how are you scheduling these? Are you using software to put these tasks on a calendar? Are you scheduling production more than 3-4 weeks out?
How do you delegate these out--- are you handing out a clipboard with the cut lists on them? How do your individual team members know what task to do next, and how long that task should take?