Managing Teams in the Best Possible Way

Organising the collaboration of highly specialised workers with maximum efficiency

Coordinating teams of experts in shift operations is a challenge for companies. In staff scheduling, the challenge is to bring together employees with their unique qualifications in such a way that the expertise relevant to a complex task is available within the team whenever it is needed. For a client, we developed a tool that optimises shift planning for aircraft maintenance staff.

Challenge

In highly specialised teams, the skills of different
employees intertwine in such a way that tasks can only be managed efficiently if all the required qualifications are available when needed.

In complex areas of operation such as aircraft maintenance as well as in production processes where different experts have to work hand in hand, in medical teams in hospitals, in larger construction projects and everywhere where the competences of the employees cannot be exchanged or replaced at will, skill profiles and time availabilities have to be interlocked with each other under the most diverse framework conditions when planning assignments so that the interaction of all participants runs smoothly

Our Contribution

We supported an international consulting company in planning shifts for aircraft maintenance staff in the best possible way with regard to effectiveness and efficiency. For this purpose, we developed a mathematical model which, on the one hand, describes the demand, i.e. the requirements for the availability of employees with certain qualifications, and, on the other hand, the constraints for duty scheduling for the employees concerned, taking into
account their individual working time models, planned absences and other restrictions.

The optimisation tool we implemented on this basis
makes it possible to create shift schedules that optimally integrate and utilise the available personnel resources so that no delays occur in the planned work processes.

As part of his consulting project, our client used this as a platform to examine and optimise different planning scenarios with his client and to develop recommendations for action for staff scheduling.

Benefits for the Client

By using the optimisation tool to examine different scenarios with different planning restrictions, it was possible to quantify the influence of specific planning restrictions on the efficiency of staff deployment.
The tool made it possible to examine the advantages and disadvantages of different part-time working time models.
Through the analyses carried out, ultimately recommendations for action could be derived for shift planning and scheduling with regard to the most effective employee deployment.