1. A factory for processing jobs-in-progress, and producing completed work, said factory comprising: a plurality of machines for receiving and processing ones of said jobs-in-progress and at least a portion of said plurality of machines having waiting queues, said machines providing status information relating to respective ones of said waiting queues; a source of orders; a source of user-selected job release criteria, said criteria including at least one of a respective utilization factor and a respective job on-time factor assigned to respective ones of said machines; storing means, responsive to said source of orders, for storing pending orders, and for releasing a selected order for inclusion in said jobs-in-progress in response to selection information; and means, responsive to information from said storing means, to said source of job release criteria and to said machine status information, for producing and revising said selection information so as to establish a Factory Profile curve of an optimum release strategy for said factory, determining a corresponding curve of predicted actual processing for each of said jobs from a trial start date through the expected completion of said job in said factory, comparing said actual job curve for each of said jobs with said Factory Profile optimum curve, and accepting said job for processing by said factory on said trial start date if said actual job curve closely follows said Factory Profile curve, within predefined bounds, throughout the processing time for said job, and otherwise determining a new curve of predicted actual processing for said job from a new trial start date and repeating said comparison.