Schedule Nervousness in Production Operations of an Airline Catering Company: The Challenge of an Effective Demand Response Program

Demand Response (DR), also known as electric load-shifting program, is a different way of shaping energy demand with the goal to reduce electricity costs for an organization. Extensive prior research studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of the action of DR through the use of operations research methodology e.g. efficient production scheduling. In the real world, schedulers typically issue an optimally planned operations schedule that takes into account the demands for manpower, machinery and even electricity profiles. However, due to the occurrence of schedule nervousness, the operations schedules are inevitably suboptimally executed. In order to restore the optimal state, schedulers could alternatively issue a rescheduling plan and thereby it is imperative that planners identify the existence of the nervousness. This paper attempts to identify the schedule nervousness and its impact on the DR program at shop-floor scheduling in the production operations of an airline catering company. The study findings, which have proved the existence of scheduling nervousness in this industry and its impact over DR program, are expected to contribute to future research on the development of more efficient demand response plans as well as rescheduling plans by integrating the pattern of schedule nervousness found in this work. Keywords—schedule nervousness; production operations; demand response program; airline catering industry