Method and apparatus for order promising

An order promising scheme includes the ability to query a hierarchical scheduling module configured to generate workflows for a series of jobs to be processed in a manufacturing environment to determine the earliest reasonable completion time for one or more additional jobs to be processed in the manufacturing environment. The querying may involve first querying an aggregate planning level of the hierarchical scheduling module to determine whether the one or more additional jobs may be processed. Further, the querying may require querying a detailed scheduling level of the hierarchical scheduling module to determine whether the one or more additional jobs may be processed in the event that the aggregate planning level returns a negative reply to the first query by the order promising module. The querying of the hierarchical scheduling module may be performed in response to user inquiries submitted via a user interface. The hierarchical scheduling module is kept apprised of a current state of the manufacturing environment through updates to a virtual representation of the manufacturing environment. This may involve updating a model of a print shop environment.