Recent manufacturing systems are required to be flexible to cope with variable situation. This requirement has driven development of distributed methods of production simulation and scheduling. Recent advances in computer network technology is achieving highly distributed manufacturing systems (HDMSs) where each facility is computerized and manages itself autonomously by communicating with other facilities. A distributed simulation method for HDMSs was proposed. To take the full advantage of this method, scheduling problem should be also discussed. Conventional distributed scheduling methods would be inappropriate for HDMSs, since some elements perform processes for information integration and decision making and are therefore subject to heavy computational load when those methods are applied to HDMSs. This paper proposes a distributed scheduling method based on a dispatching rule where the processes for decision making are not performed by any elements but indirectly by a communication protocol.