JOURNAL OF

SHIFT PATTERN

TECHNOLOGY

C-Desk Technology

CDT Solutions

CDT has been  helping companies with their staffing rosters since 1996. Through a combination of consultancy, training courses, text books and software we are able to help all companies no matter what their budget constraints. Running an  efficient shift pattern can potentially save companies millions each year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Did you have trouble with your shift pattern during the holidays? Managers often find that they experience problems with holidays over the Christmas period. Our solutions to this problem include:

· Holidays included shift patterns: The holidays are rostered into the shift pattern so everybody gets good quality time off.

· Special Christmas / New Year shift patterns: since the year has an odd number of weeks why not have a special shift pattern during this period to ensure that everyone gets either Christmas or New Year off and next year they will get  the other. What could be fairer.

· Use 12 hour shifts: If you normally use 8 hour shifts you need 3 people to come in on any day to provide 1 person on duty of 24 hours. With 12 hour shifts it just takes 2.

Shift Pattern Solutions

estimate the workload and compare one with the other. If you are under staffed then the staff need to be distributed to cover as much of the workload as possible. This is where creating an optimal shift pattern is vital since you want to meet as much of your workload as possible. If you are over staffed then you can undertake more work at no additional expense to maximise your staff’s potential.

However in some cases you are given a budget to do a job and you want to know what that budget will achieve. Start off by separating out the budget into overheads, wages, and material estimates. Then you can estimate the number of man hours within the budget and will tell you the number of staff you can employ if hourly paid. If salaried paid then you can calculate the number of staff you can employ on the budget. From there this will tell you how many man hours you have available to distribute across the year. Again you need to estimate the workload and then match up the man hours available to the workload.

Converting everything into man hours per year allows you to compare everything easily.

this issue

Starting Point P.1

Absence P.2

Shift Length P.3

Compensating for

loss of earnings P.4

January

 2011

consulting

Where do you start when creating a new shift pattern?

· The Workload?

· The Current Regime?

· The Budget?

These are all valid starting places and all have to be addressed when creating a new shift pattern. The ideal is always the workload. The workload is the whole reason for employing people after all. Therefore it is a good idea to estimate the workload and the man hours associated with it for each skill set. CDT has helped many companies analyse their workload and convert it into man hours using operational research techniques. The key to understanding your workload is data. Looking at what happened in the past is one of the best ways of forecasting what will happen in the future.

The current regime is often where most people start. They have a fixed number of staff which can’t be increased because of skills etc. and the company wants to know how to use them more effectively. This will often happen when the workload has changed over time shifting the busy periods. You start by converting the current employees into man hours. Then experimenting

 

C-Desk Technology