METHOD OF ALLOCATING WORK IN CAPACITY PLANNING `

A computer implemented method provides accurate capacity planning for manufacturing environments comprising parallel, unrelated tools that can process the same operations at different rates and with preferences for the sequence in which those tools are selected to accommodate the workload. The method reliably determines precisely what are the gating tools among sets of parallel, unrelated tools in a complex manufacturing environment in which different tools can perform the same or similar sets of operations, generally at different rates. The primary, secondary, etc. tool groups in each cascade set are explicitly kept track of in order to enable the correct penalty function to be associated with the appropriate tool group. The end user may also interact with the input data through a Menu Program or through a Graphical User Interface (GUI) and modify the data for "what-if" analyses.