Stop Scheduling Your Shop on a Whiteboard.
Visual Machine Scheduler gives production managers at job shops and CNC machining centers a real-time Gantt board showing every machine, every operator, and every active job — without an ERP implementation. Live in under 30 minutes with CSV import.
- 14-day free trial — no credit card required
- Import your existing jobs from Excel in minutes
- Purpose-built for job shops — not a bundled ERP module
Flying Blind on the Shop Floor Is Costing You More Than You Think
Machine Double-Booking
Two machinists walk up to the same CNC lathe because the schedule said it was free for both jobs. Resequencing a single machine conflict costs $250–$1,000 in restart time, priority shuffling, and operator overtime. With 2–4 incidents per month, that's $5,000–$12,000 per year — from conflicts a visual schedule would have caught in seconds.
Operator Availability Is Invisible
You can track machines on a whiteboard. You cannot track which operator is certified for the 5-axis program, which shift they're on, and whether they're already assigned to another run — all at once, in real time. When a certification conflict surfaces on the floor, it's already too late.
Excel Breaks Past 20 Jobs
Your spreadsheet works fine for 15 active jobs. At 25 jobs across 12 machines, one rush order cascades through every manually-maintained dependency. There's no conflict detection, no capacity enforcement, no alert when a job slips amber. You discover late jobs when the customer calls.
The Status Quo Costs $128K–$276K Per Year
For a $2M revenue job shop, inefficient production scheduling costs 5–10% of annual revenue in lost throughput, unplanned overtime, and reactive expediting — approximately $128,000–$276,000 per year (Qlector 2025). The Professional tier costs $3,490/year. That's a 30–65× ROI before the second prevented incident.
One Visual Board. Every Machine. Every Operator. Every Job.
Visual Machine Scheduler is a standalone, cloud-based Gantt scheduling SaaS that replaces the whiteboard and the Excel spreadsheet with a real-time visual board your production manager can actually use — without an ERP implementation, without a consultant, and without months of onboarding.
Drag-and-drop Gantt Board
Machines as rows, jobs as blocks. Drag to reschedule. Resize to adjust duration. The schedule updates in real time.
Finite Capacity + Conflict Detection
The system prevents double-booking a machine window. It detects operator conflicts. It flags at-risk jobs amber and past-due jobs red before you discover them on the shop floor.
Operator Scheduling Built In
Maintain an operator roster with certifications, shift patterns, and availability. Assign operators to CNC runs. Get conflict alerts when the same operator is double-booked across overlapping windows.
Built for the Way Job Shops Actually Schedule
Visual Gantt Board (all tiers)
Horizontal timeline with machines as rows and jobs as colored blocks. Machine View and Job View. Day, Week, 2-Week zoom. Live time marker.
Finite Capacity Enforcement (Professional+)
No double-booking. No silent conflicts. The system flags every scheduling collision in real time — machine and operator.
Operator Roster & Scheduling (Professional+)
Certifications, shift patterns, availability. Assign operators to CNC runs. Detect double-booking conflicts alongside machine conflicts.
CSV / Excel Import (all tiers)
Import your existing job list in minutes. Row-level error handling skips bad rows without blocking the rest. Time-to-first-value: under 60 minutes.
Due-Date Visual Indicators (all tiers)
Green (on track), Amber (at risk within 48 hours), Red (past due). Recalculated on every Gantt render — never cached.
Machine & Operator Utilization Reports (Professional+)
Available hours vs. scheduled hours vs. actuals per machine and per operator. On-time delivery report over 30/60/90-day rolling windows.
Live in Under 30 Minutes
Step 1 — Add Your Machines (5 minutes)
Enter your machine registry: name, type, shift pattern. Or import from your existing list.
Step 2 — Import Your Jobs (10 minutes)
Upload your active job list from Excel. Column mapping, row-level error handling, instant Gantt population.
Step 3 — Schedule and Ship On Time
Drag-and-drop to reschedule. Detect conflicts before they reach the floor. Print the daily snapshot. Go home on time.
What Is Manual Scheduling Costing Your Shop?
A $2M job shop loses an estimated $128,000–$276,000 per year to scheduling inefficiency, conflict-driven overtime, and reactive expediting. Run the calculator to quantify your shop's number.
- Machines on your floor
- 12
- Hours/week on manual scheduling
- 8
- Scheduling incidents/month
- 3
- Annual scheduling waste
- $47,200 / year
Free and Low-Cost Tools to Get Started
Excel template for tracking available vs. scheduled vs. actual hours per machine, with OEE visualization.
Production Scheduling Gantt Template$19Drag-and-drop Excel Gantt template for job shops with up to 20 machines and 50 concurrent jobs.
Machine Capacity Planning Workbook$24Structured workbook for quantifying scheduling waste and building the business case for purpose-built scheduling software.
Straightforward Pricing for Job Shop Schedules
No ERP bundles. No implementation fees. Just scheduling.
Essentials
$199/mo
Solo production manager or small shop (5–10 machines)
Basic Gantt view, CSV import, due-date indicators, daily snapshot
Professional
$349/mo
Growing job shop (10–25 machines, 10-person team)
Drag-and-drop rescheduling, finite capacity enforcement, operator scheduling with conflict detection, utilization reports
Business
$599/mo
Mid-size shop (25–75 machines, multi-shift)
Multi-shift scheduling, OEE dashboard, operator utilization reporting
Enterprise
$1,199/mo
Large job shop or contract manufacturer
Unlimited everything, custom integrations, dedicated success manager
Your Shop Floor Has a Finite Capacity. Your Scheduler Should Know That.
Join production managers who replaced their whiteboard with a real-time visual schedule. 14-day free trial. Import your jobs from Excel in minutes. No ERP integration required.
Purpose-built for job shops · No implementation project · Cancel anytime