Workforce Scheduling for Warehouse Operations
Aligning tomorrow's workload with the existing labor capacity is a challenge every warehouse planner will immediately recognize. Efficiently deploying the workforce across multiple warehouse areas and multiple warehouses on a site is an aspiration with which every warehouse operations manager can identify. ORTEC’s cloud-native solution, ORTEC Workforce for Warehousing (ORTEC WW), is designed to address the unique industry requirements for workforce scheduling in warehouse operations in manufacturing and retail. The challenges of warehouse resource scheduling, or labor management, stem from:
- fluctuating demands over time,
- last-minute changes to forecasted workloads,
- and a lack of insight and flexibility across large and often siloed operations.
Read further to learn more about workforce scheduling for warehouse operations.
The Central Scheduling Flow
While some areas may face staffing shortages, others might have employees to spare. Collaborating across decentralized units to facilitate employee exchanges presents several challenges. For example, with regards to skills management, especially when less formal or secondary skills become crucial for identifying suitable employees for reassignment between areas. Another challenge may arise from a reluctance to loan employees, as there is a preference to keep them for unforeseen circumstances or internal operations. Additionally, time pressure can hinder effective collaboration in resolving tomorrow’s schedule.
ORTEC Workforce for Warehousing facilitates a central scheduling flow with an optimizer algorithm that automates the borrowing and lending between areas. ORTEC WW’s algorithm can optimize a schedule of hundreds and thousands of employees in one run. By optimizing the assignment of your employees across areas, you can make the most of the employees on your payroll, before hiring external workers.
Task Assignment at Crunch Time
Maintaining recurring working pattern, availabilities and absences, and shift scheduling are only part of the warehouse scheduling process. ORTEC Workforce for Warehousing also manages task scheduling based on expected workload information. ORTEC WW’s AI-powered algorithm provides visibility into anticipated staffing surpluses and shortages on a task level without the need for actual task assignments. This proactive insight, based on workload analysis, empowers effective task allocation even before tasks are publicly assigned. The efficiency and accuracy of the algorithm enables you to delay this process step, ensuring it runs with the most up-to-date demand insights.
Streamlined Temp Agency Scheduling
Even when your in-house capacity is optimized across various warehouse areas and across warehouses on your site, shortages may still occur, and hiring temporary workers becomes a necessity. In warehouses where this is common practice, there is often a close co-operation with one or more temp agencies or even an on-site presence of temp agency planners. To facilitate this process, ORTEC Workforce for Warehousing supports subcontracting shifts and tasks to temp agencies. Moreover, the solution features an in-built collaborative platform where the temp agency can fulfill these requests. This collaborative platform accommodates both furnishing ad hoc daily additions and delivering longer-term contracts spanning multiple days, weeks, or months. This platform enables the selection of the most suitable temporary worker from the agency's pool, based on historical performance, skills, and individual preferences.
Learn more about workforce scheduling for warehouse operations. Workforce scheduling for your warehouse operations can optimize productivity and efficiency.
5% Increase in Productivity
Competently scheduled employees increase productivity, and a better-balanced workload leads to higher employee satisfaction.
10% Reduction in Overtime Spending
Better optimization of workload needs versus scheduled capacity decreases the need for overtime.
3% Reduction in Labor & Interim Expenses
Centralizing the scheduling process enables optimization of imbalances between departments.
80% Reduction in Time Spent Creating Rosters
The application enables a shift from decentralized planning to centralized planning. This affects the number of planners required and the total planning time invested.
Solution Benefits
An effective workforce scheduling solution plays a pivotal role in enhancing warehouse productivity, streamlining operations, and minimizing labor costs.
- More Insight and More Control
Empower managers to construct workforce schedules and assign tasks for optimal efficiency and productivity. Schedules and task assignments can be easily adjusted in response to changes in demand or employee availability, ensuring ongoing efficiency. - Raise Warehouse Productivity
Optimized workforce scheduling boosts productivity by aligning the right employees with the right shifts and the right tasks at the right times. Employees are scheduled based on their skills and experience, leading to improved overall workforce efficiency - Employee Satisfaction
Empowering employees to leverage their strengths leads to greater job satisfaction and a more balanced workload, contributing to overall employee contentment. - Flexibility
The highly flexible nature of the workforce scheduling solution allows for swift adaptation to changes in warehouse workload, seasonal variations, and employee availability. - Minimize Labor Costs
Optimizing internal capacity reduces the need to hire temporary workers, while deploying the right employees in the right roles enhances productivity and streamlines planning and communication processes.
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