Don’t Let the Wrong Software Hold You Back!

Innovative companies run at the front of the pack.  They take advantage of the latest technologies, employ fresh operational methods, and constantly search for new ideas that protect their status as industry leaders.  In manufacturing, where competition is arguably the fiercest, the race to the front is a race for survival.  A facility can invest in robotics, establish a supply chain, outfit lift trucks with wireless devices, and still fail because another facility around the corner uses all the same tools more effectively.

Each of our newsletters focus on the different ways labor deployment software, as a tool, can provide manufacturers with significant competitive advantages.  While labor scheduling programs are becoming ubiquitous in today’s manufacturing environment, enormous discrepancies exist in how they are implemented and used.  With labor comprising nearly 70% of a facility’s controllable costs, it is alarming how much money many companies leave on the table.  In other words, there is still room at the front of the pack for enterprising companies. 

As a kind of year-in-review, we are highlighting many of the key features you should consider when examining new or existing labor deployment software:

• Using budgetary standards to drive labor deployment
• Automating the use of shared resources
• Integrating production planning with labor scheduling
• Directly associating labor deployment and cost by SKU
• Easily flexing a workforce up and down to match dynamic production schedules
• Gaining visibility into actual vs. optimum labor deployment
• Automatically generating schedules that leverage your contingent labor strategy
• Optimizing schedules for headcount, overtime, key products, or reduced changeover downtime

Using budgetary standards to drive labor deployment
This feature formally ties your budgetary labor standards for each SKU to your operation’s labor scheduling.  By incorporating these often fractional standards to a production facility’s labor demands, the program can begin making better decisions about how to staff specific lines, whether with dedicated workers, shared resources, or contingent labor.  Worker deployment can finally be accurately calculated into each product cost.

Automating the use of shared resources
As production demands become more dynamic, so too does labor scheduling.  More and more manufacturers find that much of their workforce no longer fits into the one position/one shift model.  Facilities deploy these workers to perform tasks on multiple lines at once, often changing which lines they work multiple times during a shift.  Doing this efficiently is one of the biggest challenges facing any labor scheduler.  The technology exists to automate and optimize these shared labor assignments to ensure the best possible shared assignment mix for every shift.  Successful deployment of shared resources leverages fractional budgetary standards to maximize worker productivity while also reducing coverage gaps that require costly overtime.

Integrating production planning with labor scheduling
With labor so closely tied to the mix of products running on a given shift, any changes to the production plan require workforce schedule adjustments.  Translating the production changes to schedules can be quite difficult when you consider that adjusting just one employee’s assignment can have a ripple effect on twenty other employees.  Moreover, production schedules may not always fit nicely within your defined employee shifts.  What happens when a changeover is needed mid-shift, and the new product requires a different workforce mix?  Sophisticated labor scheduling software can address these kinds of challenges.  One option is to have your production schedule automatically trigger labor requirements in your labor scheduling program.  As your product mix or delivery goals change, the scheduling software accounts for the change and quickly produces an accurate, optimized labor plan.  Another available feature is to directly tie the finite nature of production plans to your labor schedule.  You no longer have to rely on manual adjustments and approximations to account for changeover within shifts.  The program automatically accounts for which employees should remain on a particular line, and which employees should be deployed to another line to remain 100% productive.

Directly associating labor deployment and cost by SKU
Labor is a key ingredient of every SKU – it’s time to measure your human capital with the same care and attention you give to raw materials.  Associating your labor needs by each SKU produced ensures that you have the right amount (no more, no less) of labor on hand to meet production goals.  This feature also allows facilities to accurately calculate and track labor costs per SKU instead of uniformly assigning labor cost averages and aggregates to all products over a period of time.

Easily flexing a workforce up and down to match dynamic production schedules
This capability is essential to controlling production costs.  Staffing too many employees is as costly to a facility as using overtime to fill labor shortages.  Having an inflexible workforce is symptomatic of poor execution; if you can’t see who need at all times, and lack the tools to accurately adjust assignments when conditions change, you’re doomed.  Deploying a truly flexible workforce requires many of the tools detailed above.  Accurate labor requirements cannot exist independently from the specific products a facility produces.  Moreover, a labor scheduling program that cannot reconcile itself with the production plan opens the entire staffing process up to the costly risks of human interpretation, fudging, and error.

Gaining visibility into actual vs. optimum labor deployment
Many facilities are bound by CBAs that place specific parameters on how labor is deployed.  For instance, a rule may dictate that an employee called upon to work one day is guaranteed 40 hours for the week.  Faced with this requirement, a facility must base their weekly schedules on the one day that requires the largest headcount.  This kind of flat scheduling plan, by design, results in gaps between how many employees report to work versus how many are actually needed to manufacture the product.  Sophisticated scheduling software can precisely show facility management where and when those gaps exist, and how wide they are.  This kind of visibility allows managers to make decisions about how to convert stranded labor to productive labor.  Special projects and tasks can be incorporated into the labor schedules and used to absorb the excess workers, whether it’s for an entire shift or for a few hours.

Automatically generating schedules that leverage your contingent labor strategy
Most manufacturers employ the use of part time employees to “round out” their labor schedules.  As the term itself implies, a contingent labor strategy is based upon the existing full-time labor strategy.  Each facility attempts to strike a balance between full and part time employees, whether that balance is based on headcount, skills, or overtime management.  Your labor scheduling software should be automated to follow your specific strategy.  Can your program relegate low-wage, low-skill jobs to contingent labor while ensuring that your full-time employees are assigned to high-wage, high-skill positions?  Furthermore, can your program give you the visibility to recognize opportunities for operational improvement?  It should inform you on whether it makes more sense to hire two more full-time employees, or five more part-timers.  It should be showing you assignment trends that reveal training and development opportunities for full and part time employees alike.  Instead of simply hoping that your labor deployment supports your contingent labor strategy, you can make your contingent labor strategy part of your labor deployment execution.

Optimizing schedules for headcount, overtime, key products, or reduced changeover downtime
Optimized scheduling solutions are built upon the premise that there can be multiple correct answers to a question, but only one “best” answer.  Determining which answer is best depends upon specific goals and circumstances.  Your software should have the ability to shuffle and re-shuffle labor assignments to ensure that you are maximizing employee availability and qualifications.  If changing one employee assignment would result the elimination of two layoffs and 16 hours of overtime, wouldn’t you want your scheduling program to automatically make that adjustment?  If certain SKUs have a higher priority in your facility than others, your program should automatically deploy labor according to those priorities.  Your program should also be trusted to assign employees during changeovers that take advantage of your plant’s physical layout.  Keeping employees in one general area during a shift, instead of sending them from one side of the facility to another, can reduce downtime and costs.

You do not have to settle on a second best labor scheduling program.  ScheduleSoft has been a pioneer in the field of workforce deployment software, is proud to offer all of the features above to its users.  Contact us today for a demonstration, or to learn about how we may be able to help you gain an edge over your competition.

Schedule a demo to see how we can address your unique scheduling needs or call us to learn more about our customers in manufacturing: 1-800-416-9006.