Excellent comments from all ! !

At our main facility we have some 2600+ employees under a single 60 acre roof, and each of our three main product lines have one singular point where nearly everything comes together. Through the past 30 years, our scheduling departments have done a rather remarkable job of establishing exacting timeframes for all of the multi-hundreds of proceeses it takes to produce our unique products. Normally, we have a 16 week lead time between order acceptance and the completed work, regardless of the actual quantity in a particular order. We can often have the flexability to shorten this to 12 weeks for emergency orders where our customers have had their operational systems attacked, which could happen a couple of times a year. UL, our registrar has always been impressed with the operation of our entire system, especially our scheduling departments.
I usually address scheduling particularily in this site due to the magnitude of the risk involved if it is not operating at peak performance, both in effectiveness and efficiency. Our on time delivery is set at roughly 98.5% and one day late goals are set at better than 99% ( I believe). Historically, we always have met our goals, and have been recognized by our customers as having the best delivery times.
When I audit other organizations, I always include the scheduling function and compare the operation to their delivery performance and customer compliants as well.
An audit of the scheduling function is not too difficult to do, even though most organizations do not have a documented system for this process, however, those who conduct the work can, in most cases, well define the operation. An additional way of verifying the effectiveness of this process can be done during the audit of the production/service areas, since all of the information relating to the flow of work orders should be available to the managers, supervisors, and usually the front line workers as well. I normally look for the WO packet, travelers, bom's, fc's, ppaps, etc. If the area has change outs during the day, I would expect to see these documents in or near the area, and a logical (from the organization's point of view) order of the placing and sequencing of work. Questioning the supervisors and operators about any types of problems relating to any sudden or radical changes in the work to be done (and the frequency that this happens) can lead give a good understanding of the effectiveness of the scheduling program. I wouldn't necessarily accept an answer that frequently there were no parts available as a good explaination for changing order schedules often, since this only shows problems elsewhere, perhaps in the purchasing department. However, the scheduling department's not knowing of parts shortage also might prove there is a gap in the system.
Since there isn't a particular clause identified in the standard, I typically identify problems under 7.5.1 or under 7.1; but, of course, all of those clauses previously identified above can have an impact on this part of the overall organizational process, and should be audited as another piece of the whole pie read: process auditing. :thedeal: