Understanding how to make the best of human skills and knowledge is essential in the design of technology and jobs, particularly where these involve decision-making and uncertainty. Recent developments have been made in naturalistic decision-making, distributed cognition and situational awareness, particularly with respect to aviation, transport and strategic planning, the nuclear industry and other high-risk industries.

Despite the integration of computer-based support systems in production scheduling in recent years, the reality is that most enterprises consist of reactive re-scheduling, involving a high degree of human involvement. It is often with the insight, knowledge and skills of people that scheduling skills can function with any degree of success.

Human Performance in Planning and Scheduling covers many industries, including clothing, steel, machine tools, paper/board, and the automobile industry. Using international case studies from various manufacturing industries, they highlight the fact that the human scheduler is a pivotal element in the scheduling process. Each section of the book includes an introduction with an overview of the material to follow, clearly identifying themes, discussion points and highlights inter-connections between the authors' work.