The past foretells the future.
If nothing has changed from last year, it will happen again next year
C-Desk Technology
{Copyright (C) 2011 CDT. All Rights Reserved}
Decision Making Based on Statistics
Combining Optimised Shift Working & Operations Research
VisualrotaX allows the scheduling(rostering) of staff to be completed easily and quickly by the manager while at the same time VisualrotaX compiles additional information to be used by the operations/financial manager to be linked into forecasting on the employment of staff and budget decisions. VisualrotaX can supply the manager with advanced information enabling informed decisions to be made in advance at no extra cost in time. We have a closely associated suite of programs that convert the Schedule(Roster) into the types of charts often seen at meetings. Statistics were concerned mostly with the collection of data and its presentation in tables and charts. Now, it has evolved and its impact is felt in almost every area of human endeavour. This is because modern statistics is looked upon as encompassing a process as old as history itself, that of decision making in the face of uncertainty. Needless to say, there are uncertainties wherever we turn, -when we predict the weather, experiment with a new process or a new product, or a new business extension.
Thus, the most important feature in today's statistics is a shift of emphasis from methods merely describing to methods which serve to make generalisations, or in other words, a shift in emphasis from descriptive statistics to statistical inference. Descriptive statistics is treating data to summarise or describe some important feature without attempting to infer anything that goes beyond the data. For instance, the number of passengers carried on a train during the last year would be a descriptive statistic. the use of that statistic to predict the number of passengers carried on a train next year would be a statistical inference.
C-DESK
Decisions & statistics
Descriptive statistics is an important branch of statistics and is widely used in all businesses large and small. In most cases, the information arises from samples or large scale observations on a small set of items. The time, cost and impossibility of doing otherwise usually limits the information gathering procedure, even though our real interest lies in the whole large set of items from which the sample was obtained, and not in the past, but the future. Since generalisations of any kind lie outside the scope of descriptive statistics, we are thus led to the use of statistical inferences in making both short- and long-range plans and in solving many problems of day-to-day operations. To mention but a few examples, the methods of statistical inference are required to estimate; the length of stay of post-op patients, the stock levels of drugs, the effective dose of an antibiotic, the ratio of beds to surgical operations.
It must be understood, of course, that when we make a statistical inference, that is, a generalisation which goes beyond the limits of our data, we must proceed with considerable caution. We must decide carefully how far we can go in generalising from a given set of data, whether such generalisations are at all reasonable or justified, whether it might be wise to wait until we have more data, and so forth. Indeed, the most important problem of statistical inference is to appraise the risks to which we are exposed by making generalisations from sample data, the probabilities of making wrong decisions or incorrect predictions, and the chances of obtaining estimates which do not lie within permissible limits of error. These various possibilities may seem somewhat frightening, but they cannot be eliminated; so long as we have to live with uncertainties, we simply must learn how to live with them intelligently.
There are tools available to help in the decision making process, computer programs being the most important. By far the largest cost in industry is staffing costs. It can be argued that if you go back far enough in the supply chain the only cost is the labour cost! Budgets are set for the future and expenditure examined from the past. Any program that can track staffing levels on a shift-by-shift, week-by-week, month-by-month basis and report on under or over manning of the shifts, both in the past, today, and as far into the future as you like, will serve to eliminate a major portion of any generalisation, giving instead actual factual data. The computer program eliminates the need to sample data, because it is possible to examine all the data. The program can display the data as a table or chart, or as a pattern. Changes to any pattern of working are immediately visible without the need to manually manipulate the data, it is all done automatically no matter how complicated the manipulation.
Imagine the scenario whereby a new operation becomes possible and you need to build a new extension and staff it. VisualrotaX gives you a tool to staff the new extension before it's built and determine the number of new staff to be recruited, the staffing costs, the training costs, etc. before any money is actually spent. From this data and an estimate of the numbers forecast, the cost per operational unit is found and whether it is profitable.
It must be understood, of course, that when we make a statistical inference, that is, a generalisation which goes beyond the limits of our data, we must proceed with considerable caution. We must decide carefully how far we can go in generalising from a given set of data, whether such generalisations are at all reasonable or justified, whether it might be wise to wait until we have more data, and so forth. Indeed, the most important problem of statistical inference is to appraise the risks to which we are exposed by making generalisations from sample data, the probabilities of making wrong decisions or incorrect predictions, and the chances of obtaining estimates which do not lie within permissible limits of error. These various possibilities may seem somewhat frightening, but they cannot be eliminated; so long as we have to live with uncertainties, we simply must learn how to live with them intelligently.
There are tools available to help in the decision making process, computer programs being the most important. By far the largest cost in industry is staffing costs. It can be argued that if you go back far enough in the supply chain the only cost is the labour cost! Budgets are set for the future and expenditure examined from the past. Any program that can track staffing levels on a shift-by-shift, week-by-week, month-by-month basis and report on under or over manning of the shifts, both in the past, today, and as far into the future as you like, will serve to eliminate a major portion of any generalisation, giving instead actual factual data. The computer program eliminates the need to sample data, because it is possible to examine all the data. The program can display the data as a table or chart, or as a pattern. Changes to any pattern of working are immediately visible without the need to manually manipulate the data, it is all done automatically no matter how complicated the manipulation.
Imagine the scenario whereby a new operation becomes possible and you need to build a new extension and staff it. VisualrotaX gives you a tool to staff the new extension before it's built and determine the number of new staff to be recruited, the staffing costs, the training costs, etc. before any money is actually spent. From this data and an estimate of the numbers forecast, the cost per operational unit is found and whether it is profitable.
Someone has to make the decisions about the future of the organisation. Statistics are much more reliable than any other method as an aid to decision making. They can predict why 'Buses Come in Threes' or 'how long is a piece of string?' Operational Research (OR) is a branch of mathematics whose purpose is to predict the future. At CDT, Dr Angela Jezewski speciality is to combine setting up optimised shift patterns with OR. We believe this is a unique combination.
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HSBC Bank
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Nottm City Hospital
HSBC Bank
Three
Nottm City Hospital