Scheduling is the last step in supply chain planning before the material is actually converted. It represents the final opportunity to review the information and make decisions before hard assets are expended. Typical schedulers respond to:

1. Plans developed by the business that deals with capacity utilization, and inventory targets. These plans might be developed periodically in the Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) process and communicated to the Scheduler.
2. Changes to orders, equipment disruptions, unplanned shipments, and other events that occur between periodic updates to the plan. Everyone recognizes that major benefits can be gained by providing better tools for the scheduler. The challenge is to introduce these tools in a smooth and non-disruptive manner.