Workforce Planning plays a central role in the Smart Factory. After all, detailed planning is not just about orders to be distributed to machines or workplaces. Key factors are often other resources or employees, and this is why it is essential to include all sorts of aspects in detailed planning. This article primarily focuses on employees and the associated workforce planning.
To distribute orders in the shop floor is no easy task as relationships between operations of orders must be respected. Other issues are set-up times that must be reduced, or planners need to accommodate production variants, and, above all, deadlines have to be met. MPDV’s Advanced Planning and Scheduling System (APS) FEDRA is a solution that provides support for production planners in overcoming these and many other challenges – even by means of artificial intelligence (AI).
Similar challenges arise when planning personnel in production. The aim is to incorporate employees with different working hours and qualifications into the production process in the best possible way. Balancing personnel requirements and availability is the task of workforce planning, which can also be mapped with APS FEDRA. Personnel with different qualifications need to be scheduled at the right time at the right workplace.
How much personnel with specific skills are required depends on available machines or operations and the associated activities. FEDRA plans machines and workplaces exactly and assigns them for particular operations. The conclusions just drawn can also be viewed from another angle: Which workplaces can be run for operations depends on the available personnel and their qualifications. In both cases, it is not expedient to consider classic order planning and production workforce planning in isolation from each other. Instead, integrated planning of personnel and operations is required: MPDV’s APS FEDRA offers the capability to plan production in an integrated fashion – all resources can be viewed simultaneously.
Workforce Planning with APS FEDRA
Basically, workforce planning in FEDRA works on the principle of “meeting requirements”. In reality, this means that staffing requirements are met by available employees. For this purpose, the planner has different tools at their disposal. For example, they can run the planning completely automatically. In this case, the software uses predefined rules to decide which employees best match the respective workforce requirements. In the process, shift scheduling as well as the qualifications of each individual employee are factored in.
The multitude of options is more apparent in manual scheduling. Obviously, the planner can easily assign an employee to a workplace according to their qualifications for the entire duration of their shift. However, FEDRA also makes it possible to assign employees to machine A for a certain time only and then have them work on machine B. You therefore have the option to map job rotation, which, depending on the monotony of the work, may be ergonomically necessary or advantageous for retaining concentration.
On the other hand, an employee can also be scheduled proportionally at one workplace and thus operate several machines at the same time. Especially in supervisory functions or with highly automated machines that only need to be monitored, the option of multi-machine operation offers a great deal of flexibility. Even the induction of new employees can be managed with the software. For example, the new colleague could only be scheduled to work for 50%, while someone with experience takes over the remaining workload. Proportional assignment can also be combined with scheduling, allowing FEDRA to represent almost any work model. But FEDRA is capable of much more!
Planning based on work sharing in the Smart Factory
The bigger a company gets; the more people are engaged in planning. Either several employees plan their individual production areas, or production planning and workforce planning are separated. Whatever the case, looking beyond the boundaries of a planning area to see what the other area is doing can be useful. Reasons for this can be multi-level production orders that are processed across departments, or some employees might be closely connected to specific tasks.
With FEDRA, more than one operator can work on the same planning scenario. Each activity is instantly displayed for all involved. For example, Mr. Miller can distribute the orders among the machines, while Ms. Farrel ensures that the personnel requirements are covered by qualified employees. This works sequentially but also simultaneously and thus, planning of orders and personnel is working hand in glove.
Interoperation with MES HYDRA
Thanks to the close integration of workforce planning and detailed order planning, users can be confident that planning takes all requirements and demands into account. If, in a next step, planning is to become control, a connection to the shop floor simply needs to be created in order to collect data in real time. To this end, the Manufacturing Execution System (MES) HYDRA X from MPDV offers various mApps in the Order Management and Resource Management categories. However, if only capacities are planned, the associated mApps from APS FEDRA are sufficient.
Everyday use cases in Workforce Planning
- Ms. Sabine Weis was scheduled for the entire shift as a machine operator. She covers 50% of the workforce requirement.
- Mr. Jurgen Becker was also scheduled for the entire shift as machine operator. He covers 100% of the workforce requirement of the workplace, but only 50% is required for this task and therefore he would be available for another job.
- Ms. Klara Klaus was scheduled as machine operator for a part of her shift. This means, that the workforce requirement is only partly covered, and Ms. Klaus can be scheduled for the remaining time.
- Ms. White was scheduled for 50% as machine operator and therefore she covers only one-fourth of the workforce requirement and can scheduled for another task 50%.
You can find out more about staff scheduling with FEDRA mApp Workforce Planning on our website.
