Do you really think it is possible? It should be dynamic and in real-time, that means if something changes (for example a machine or product gets broken during the manufacturing process) then the manufacturing order should change. Also, it is desired that the production manager can interfere and manually change the order just in case - the optimal order should be re-calculated then automatically. As previously stated, the optimal order should consider capacity usage and constraints, if necessary material is in stock, the steps needed for the specific product variant and delivery deadline etc. Our end goal is to minimize the production time (fast delivery is highly important to customers) and to make better use of our resources/capacity.
Is Airtable fast enough to make the necessary computation?
To answer your question about how to convey the information to the operator: I would place a monitor at each work station which shows a kanban board (or Gantt diagram) with one column for each work station/machine. The items on the kanban board should be in the order to be processed. If one should wait for a specific kanban item then there should be a hint until it arrives at the work station. But this is just an idea, maybe there is something better?
I would say the latency may not be that much of an issue for this production workflow as the change from one work station to another is not lightning fast. Yet, this should be investigated.
