Many Companies rely on having the right number of Employees with the right skills to complete a given production – regardless of whether it is physical goods or services. It can be a rather challenging task to secure over a longer period – especially in Companies that are challenged by a high level of complexity. This can be in the form of large amounts of data, a high degree of variation in production or time constrained environments where complex Laws and Regulations are part of everyday life.
For the past 20 years, PDC has helped Companies and Public Institutions with Demand Driven Shift and Production Planning.
To plan accurately, it is crucial to identify what is to be produced, in what quantities and with what effort (qualifications, number of people, locations, equipment, etc.). For this, PDC delivers innovative and specialised Solutions that provide a structured overview, increased productivity and optimised utilisation of resources.
Good shift and production planning are based on a number of factors including:
- Transparent processes
- Clearly defined needs (number, qualifications etc.)
- Accurate calculation of resource requirements
- Employee influence
- Effective communication with the Staff
PDC has extensive experience in modelling the processes our Customers must carry out. We create the framework for a solid shift and production plan i.e. Setup of duty hours, costs, cost allocations, payroll expenses, skill requirements, tasks, teams and more.
This allows the Planners and Managers to get a very clear indication of the cost of implementing the plan – even before resources are allocated to the plan.
Where variation in demand and framework is limited, simple planning solutions may be enough. This is when, for example, it is easy to see whether Employees are complying with Working Rules, whether they are receiving the right supplements, whether critical production areas are covered, etc.
On the other hand, if there are great variations in the demand from day to day or week to week, it can be a great help to model the production before the Schedule is formed. The same applies if changes to the Plans come close to the deadline or there are several parallel Productions where specialised resources can create bottlenecks. PDC has developed tools that automatically handle several of these tasks.
Employees can be allocated to the planned tasks manually and possibly in combination with fixed basic template plans or with the support of optimisation tools. The derived demands from the Production Plan can be easily met and variations are quickly identified and handled with loosely connected Employees or Staff from neighbouring departments.
In cases where there are many Employees with the same qualifications e.g. Nurses or Prison Wardens it can be of great help with automatic generation of Plans (not yet allocated to Employees). This provides a very concrete expression of the demand in the form of shifts that Employees may request or the Planner can distribute (see the section on “Automatic Planning”).
At PDC, we recognise that our Customers have unique requirements for our Solution across their various Industries. Therefore, we see it as a virtue to inspire with a toolbox of standardised Planning and Optimisation methods that address individual business needs.