The Coöperatie Rundvee Verbetering (CRV; Livestock Improvement Cooperative) is internationally organized, has 2000 employees around the world and focuses on improving livestock. CRV develops products, services and activities with added value for professional dairy and beef farmers, such as increasing the value of milk or meat, a drop in the cost price, the efficient input of labor and greater operational safety. CRV develops and provides knowledge and genetic material like sperm, embryos and breeding bulls.

Challenges of workforce scheduling

CRV schedules the planning for artificial insemination 7 days a week and sample collection and their distribution 5 days a week. CRV employs 35 planners (some part-time) to handle 3500 orders a day. The most important challenges in the optimization of the service and workforce scheduling:

• The volume of work fluctuates widely per season
• Various activities require a number of qualifications
• The time slots are critical
• The activities are international
• Standardization and paperless office is preferred

To optimize, internationalize and standardize the operational processes, CRV decided on a new ERP system and ORTEC solutions for the field sales service and workforce scheduling.

Solutions and results

 “The ERP package and current scheduling solution were an important step towards internationalizing and standardizing our processes and realizing a virtually paperless environment,” explained Gerard van Logtestijn of CRV. Thanks to the use of ORTEC Workforce Scheduling and ORTEC Service Planning, CRV could optimize the operational processes and make them uniform. “Information does not have to be entered twice any longer. The registration of free days complies with the legislation and collective labor agreement and the accumulated holiday entitlements or compensation days for overtime are correct,” said Van Logtestijn. Even the route optimization software has many benefits. “Because everyone is on the road a lot, it is important to work with a real-time solution that allows us to respond flexibly to situations,” explained van Logtestijn.