Shiftwork Solutions is excited to offer a new service.

Beginning immediately, you can sign up to talk face to face with a shiftwork expert – for free!

Here is how it works:

(1) Go to our home page and click the button that will take you to a request form.

(2) Fill out the request form. After you send it, you will receive an email confirmation the we have received your request.

(3) Bruce Oliver, out office manager will contact you to set up a a time that is convenient for you.

(4) We will send you an invitation to a private webinar. All you have to do is click on the link in the email. There will also be a phone number for you to dial through to for audio.

(5) We will meet you online and go over your situation.

Five steps that can be summed up as, fill out the form, confirm a time and then click on the link we send you.

Our hope is that this interactive forum is more productive that a traditional telephone call. You will be able to see who you are talking with and we will be able to see you (if you have a webcam). We will also be able to share documents with you that may help with your current situation.

Remember, there is no charge for this service.

We look forward to seeing/hearing you online.

There is a big difference between creating a shift schedule for a manufacturing plant and a call center.

More often than not, manufacturing tends to have steady workloads throughout a shift. While there may be some day to day variations, or even seasonality, these are relatively minor compared to what goes on at a call center.

Like all scheduling projects, we need to consider the needs of the workforce as well as the needs of the company.

For call centers, the needs of the company can be complicated. We look for answers to the following types of questions: When do the calls come in? How long do they last? Is it better to staff lean and miss a call or two or is it better to over staff and answer every call on the first ring? Answers to questions like these will create a mathematical model for schedule design.

To fit such a model, we often find that covering 24/7 with a simple 4-crew schedule does not offer a very good fit. Instead, we tend to find that several schedules, sometimes one per person puts the right number of people in the right place at the right time. We frequently resort to a variety of shift lengths that create gaps and overlaps at the appropriate times.

Just trying to do this for a single day can be very complicated. Doing it for an entire week while ensuring the workforce is not over/under utilized can take time, but the payoff will be significant.

If you pay an employee $20 an hour, over staffing will cost you about $70,000 per year per extra person. At the same time, under staffing will result in either high overtime or poor customer service.

The right schedule can make sure that you are staffed as optimally as possible.

We are typically asked about ways to lower overtime. It is clear that most companies view overtime as a necessary evil. They try to get it as low as possible and consider all overtime reduction as a cost savings.

In many instances, they are right. However, just as often, they are wrong.

From a pure tangible cost perspective, overtime probably is about 10% more expensive than straight time.  This means you can reduce overtime costs by adding more people (more straight time hours).  However, suppose you try to do this but overshoot the mark.  You hire so many more straight time hours that you now have more than you need.  You are overstaffed.

Being overstaffed is about fifteen to twenty times more expensive than being understaffed.  If you are understaffed you pay for overtime instead of straight time.  This probably comes to an extra couple of dollars an hour.  If you are overstaffed, you are paying full wages and benefits to hours you don’t need.  Depending on your hourly rate, this could be anywhere from $20 per hour to well over $40 per hour.

So back to the topic at hand.  When is high overtime appropriate.

The short answer is – when your workload is highly variable.

A longer answer would be – when your workload is highly variable and the skill set you require of your workforce is not readily available using any of the traditional workforce argumentors (i.e. part time and temporary labor).

If you staff to match peak workloads and your workload is variable, then you will find yourself overstaffed quite often.

If you staff to match you lower workloads, you will find yourself understaffed.  This means overtime.

The greater the variability, the more idle time you will incur if you staff to peak production and the more overtime you will incur if you staff to minimum production.  Since overtime is significantly less costly, you will pay less if your staffing tends towards the minimum production.

There are ways to schedule your workforce to closely match a variable workload.  The more predictably variable it is, the better the match becomes.

Often, when we start on a project with a company, the question will be asked, “Can we put in more than one schedule?” The intent is to discern if such a thing is actually possible or too complicated to consider.

The answer is almost always, “Yes, in fact you already have multiple schedules being worked at this site.”

It would be a rare find indeed if a company was operating with its entire workforce on a single schedule. It would be even rarer if such a singular scheduling scenario was optimal from an efficiency perspective.

Consider your basic operation where there is a maintenance crew and a production crew. Quite often, these two disparate operations are on the same schedule in spite of the fact that one cannot do its job while the other is working. You can’t run a line that is taken apart for maintenance and you can fix a conveyor belt that is moving.

So different schedules are not only possible, but often necessary for the efficient operation of the facility.

Suppose that you have two different schedules but they are both in maintenance or both in production. It that feasible?

Certainly. If you have, for example, three identical production lines and you can only meet production demands if one of the lines is running 24/7, then it make sense to have one line run 24/7 while the others remain on a 5-day schedule.

While this is efficient, it can lead to complications when it comes to issues like overtime, absentee coverage and seniority. For example, if a 12-hour, 7-day schedule and an 8-hour, 5-day schedule both start at the same time and there is an absence on the 12-hour schedule, what do you do? Do you cover it by calling in a 12-hour person on their day off? Do you hold over an 8-hour person that is expecting to go home? If both options are available, who chooses which option will be used? Suppose there is a 12-hour person at home that wants to come in for the overtime but there is a more senior 8-hour person that wants to hold over; does seniority rule or does the person on the schedule get priority?

Suppose a person on a 12-hour schedule wants to take 2 weeks of vacation and an 8-hour person steps into the 12-hour schedule to fill the position, are there any policies that will be impacted? This seems like a simple issue until you understand that often pay and work policies for an 8-hour schedule do not work well for a 12-hour schedule.

The list of considerations goes on and on. Suppose there is a layoff on one product line on one schedule but not on another product line on a different schedule? If you lay off by seniority and a senior person stays but has to change lines and schedules and then wants to take vacation, will your policies work?

If you have one supervisor covering two lines and the lines are on different schedules, what schedule will the supervisor work? The more time he spends one one schedule with one crew, the less time he will spend with the crew on the different schedule.

Finally, different schedules have different levels of attraction. Are you willing to allow skilled employees to migrate to the more attractive schedule?

Multiple schedules not only work, they are often more beneficial to the company. However, be prepared for the complications that can arise from such a shift work structure.

The problem with all night shifts, regardless of shift length, is that they don’t match up with the lifestyles of the rest of the world. On nights, you are expected to be awake when everyone else is asleep and then you are to sleep when everyone else is awake. A pretty tall order.

Most shiftworkers on nights report getting less sleep than on any other shift. There are several reasons for this. First of all, if your circadian rhythms are set to keep you awake during the days and asleep at night, they will actually be working against you. Secondly, we don’t like to sleep during daylight hours because we have family and social opportunities that we don’t want to miss. Finally, there is the sleep environment itself. It is hard to completely isolate yourself from the lights and sounds of the day when you are trying to sleep.

All of this means we sleep less when working nights. The problem with 8-hour shifts is that there are a lot of them. This generally means that the more shifts in a row you work, the farther you fall behind in your sleep. At the same time, the more shifts in a row you work, the more able your body is to match your circadian rhythms to your new sleep pattern, thus improving sleep. So, on the one hand, more days in a row means more fatigue while, on the other hand, more shifts in a row means better sleep – eventually.

Now let’s consider 12-hour shifts. There are a lot fewer shifts to work if you switch from 8-hour shifts to 12′s. This generally means that you will only be working 2-4 night shifts in a row instead of 5-7 8-hour shifts in a row.

One popular schedule pattern is the 2-3-2. On this schedule, you work 2 or 3 nights in a row before getting a 2 or 3 day break. The good news is that you don’t work too many nights in a row so you never fall too far behind in your sleep. The bad news is that since you work fewer nights in a row, you never get a chance to adjust to the shift. Additionally, you only have a few days off between shifts (on some patterns) which means you may have trouble readjusting to days (on your days off) as well.

If you go to a 4-on-4-off pattern, you will work more nights in a row and thus, fall farther behind in your sleep. However, the more nights in a row means (1) your body will adjust better to the night shift than if you worked fewer nights in a row and (2) more in a row means fewer times that you need to readjust to nights when you return to work and finally (3) you have 4 days off in a row which gives you a chance to adjust to days on your days off.

A 2-3-2 pattern means that you have to adjust to night shifts 78 times a year. A 4-on-4-off pattern only has 46 adjustments to nights in a year.

So, what is best for you? It comes down to your own behavior. If you find that you cannot adjust to nights at all, it is better to work fewer night shifts in a row to limit your accumulated sleep debt. If you adjust easily to nights, work more of them in a row to minimize those difficult first couple of days that we all go through when making the adjustment.

Most people that come to our site are thinking “I need a shift schedule so all I need to do is search the internet until I find a pattern that I like.”

There are several “Danger Will Robinson” issues associated with this idea. First of all, what you like may not be what everyone else likes. Secondly, what everyone else likes may not be what is best for your company.

Suppose you like to work the Day Shift and have all of your weekends off. It won’t be hard to find a schedule that provides this type of pattern. Now, suppose you work at a refinery that runs 24/7. If you have all day shifts, then others are having to work more non-day shifts. If you have all of your weekends off, then others will have to work the weekends more often. So you can see, satisfying your personal preference may not satisfy the preference of others.

Take this same refinery. Suppose everyone agrees that weekends off would be a good thing. You will have no problem finding a schedule that gives all of the weekends off and you will certainly have no problem getting a consensus that such a schedule is a good idea from a lifestyle point of view. However, a refinery must run on the weekends. Having a schedule that gives everyone the weekends off will not change that fact.

Here are a few ways that schedules differ:
amount of coverage
amount of overtime
scheduling maintenance
scheduling vacations
absentee coverage
product flow
health and alertness
shift length
number of days in a row
fixed or rotating shifts
fixed or rotating days
cross training
sanitizing schedule
shipping schedule
warehouse capacity and scheduling
seasonality
discretionary work
overtime pay and policies

This list can go on and on. Different companies, even within the same industry often need different schedules.

Take the time to do the research and find out what you should be thinking about for your situation. We are here to help. Call our office to discuss your situation with one of our shift work experts. There is no charge for the call so if you have a question, there is no reason not to ask for help.

Lean manufacturing is one of those rare production crazes that actually works. People that have never heard of it might immediately think it implies reducing the size of the workforce. This is simply not the case.

Lean manufacturing  means to produce with the goal of zero waste.  So the question is, “What is waste?”  Waste can be inventories sitting in the warehouse not doing anything. Waste can be a downstream work center waiting while upstream work centers are falling behind. Waste can be time spent looking for tools because the workspace is a mess.

If it is not adding value, it is waste.

The shift work structure used in a Lean Manufacturing environment is extremely important. It would be a wild coincidence if every work center needed exactly the same amount of coverage every day.

In actual practice, companies try to do just that. They put everyone on the same schedule and then hope that the workload balances out. When it doesn’t, waste is created either by high overtime, high inventories or idle work centers.

Lean manufacturing works. Make sure your shift schedule works as well.