Tim to read: 9 min

Create a Shift Plan for Assembly

easily and effectively with the ipolog software
Book a Demo now

As an assembly shift planner, you can manage shift schedules, vacation times or downtimes in a snap with ipolog

Your company should be able to operate as efficiently as possible. Assigning employees efficiently in complex situations can be a real Herculean task. The optimal deployment and utilization of your employees is a decisive factor for the success of your company. Excel sheets, planning walls or PowerPoints quickly reach their limits. The situation becomes even more difficult for the shift planner when employees are absent with short notice due to illness or many are on vacation at the same time. This means that production, assembly or logistics in your company will not run smoothly. Is this situation familiar? Then find out how you can solve these problems. For the shift plan or duty roster to work best it is important to know a few things about the production staff and their tasks. The following information is essential:

Which employee has which qualifications:

There are tasks in your production that require special knowledge or training. You cannot assign this task to every employee. For optimal human resource planning, it is therefore important to know which tasks arise and which employees can perform these tasks.
b

Which tasks are actually performed:

Once employee qualifications are known it is important to have an overview of the tasks to be completed. Especially in production, assembly or logistics, how long it takes an employee to complete his or her tasks is critical. This information can also help with task assignment to employees. This important information helps ipolog software create the optimal shift schedule for your company.

How long employees need for which task:

Especially in manufacturing, assembly or logistics, how long it takes an employee to complete tasks plays a decisive role. But it is also important to know this in other contexts. This will give you a better feeling for how many tasks you can give your employee. In addition, this is an important information to be able to create the optimal shift plan for your company later in our ipolog software. You do not have an exact time recording yet? No problem! Choose a typical working week and perform an internal time recording during this week.

Are workstations already optimally configured:

This is a rather broad topic but plays an important role in the context of optimal human resource planning. If an employee first has to travel several meters or even kilometers to gather the needed material this is not very efficient. There is most likely room for improvement in material supply, so that employees can work faster and more efficiently. Our ipolog software provides algorithms and calculations for both material supply and human resource planning.
Book a Demo now

As a planner you also need some basic information to be able to create a good shift plan:

  • The hours worked per day or the number of hours per week
  • Rest periods and breaks
  • Number of shifts – (including night shifts)
  • Knowledge of public holidays at the respective workplaces

As a shift planner, personnel planner or duty scheduler, you know about your employees’ qualifications, tasks and any problems they may have in performing their duties. But – as you know – that is only half the story. Time and again, employees are absent with short notice due to illness. Furthermore, your employees regularly go on well-deserved holidays. Due to private appointments, shifts are exchanged again and again or individual hours are taken off. These arrangements are often only made verbally and not everyone receives this important information. Excel cannot help here and creates a headache for shift planners or duty schedulers trying to keep everything straight. But not for long! Our ipolog software allows you to feel confident about these situations in the future. From now on you can set the pace yourself.

In our ipolog software you can simulate work processes and better plan the scheduling of your employees. The software shows you in real time every step your workers take in 3D and in the real production environment. You can see walking paths as well as the movement of the belt and the respective process steps (assembly work, retrieving material, etc.).

This allows you to very quickly see whether schedules are useful or in need of improvement. Do changes to the material supply result in an improvement in efficiency or is moving a complete workstation the better alternative? You can quickly test this scenario with a few mouse clicks using drag & drop. Every change is instantly visible and the changed material conditions and routes are considered and displayed.

You can make every single planning change directly in ipolog and see instantly in 3D what the consequences are. This makes the planning of each shift fast and efficient. You can play through alternatives and coordinate your results with other shift planners.

Thanks to the clearly arranged 3D simulation you know:

  • How many employees you need
  • How many employees you need per shift (for example, fewer workers on the night shift)
  • What the employees are to be used for
  • Which qualification an employee needs for which tasks
  • In which weeks there are staff shortages and how you can solve them
  • At which points your employees are not yet optimally utilized

With the knowledge stored in ipolog about the tasks, the skills of your employees and the time required for the work steps, you can efficiently reschedule your staff with just a few clicks, even in case of illness, change of shifts, other absences or holidays. ipolog supports you and highlights bottlenecks and unlocked potential.

With these steps a simpler and more efficient creation of rosters and shift plans is achieved:

b

Step 1

Import existing material lists and process flows.
}

Step 2

Concrete process times and working hours are collected via MTM or REFA. Survey of employee competencies as well as product rules and product configurations.
p

Step 3

Integration of concrete production programs, vacation schedules, cycle times and employee competencies. All information can be displayed directly in ipolog.

Step 4

Possible replanning and revision at the workplace based on the integrated data.
For the creation of shift schedules, duty rosters and personnel deployment planning in your company, there is a whole range of added values that benefit the entire company. Here are some improvements you can expect:
  • Increase in productively used time in assembly by at least 10%.
  • Clear representation in one software tears down communication barriers
  • Reduction of the planning effort for work preparation by up to 50%
  • Planners gain time for the optimization of work processes, which, according to experience, can increase rationalization potential by up to 20%
  • Optimal deployment of assembly staff for the respective production program
  • Higher delivery reliability for satisfied customers and successful production managers
We want to put our words into action. Take a look at our success story with Max Holder GmbH and see what improved and clear human resource planning can look like in reality.
Success Stories
Do you have questions about the feasibility of such an improvement in your company? We would be happy to take the time to discuss your questions in a personal conversation.
Contact us

What our customers say

Digitalization, visualization, and the ability to analyze data were the most important decision criteria in our software selection. In the provisioning planning, we have been able to achieve significant improvements with the ipolog software so far.

Iris Koppermann

LOGISTIC SPECIALIST, SMP

You might also be interested in the following:

Digital Factory Planning & The Digital Factory

Digital Factory Planning & The Digital Factory

In the digital factory of the future, a variety of digital models and tools will be used. In digital factory operations, all data is brought together as part of end-to-end data management - in a digital reality.
Mehr erfahren
Intralogistics Optimization

Intralogistics Optimization

You and your intralogistics are facing major challenges: Increasing variant diversity, small quantities as well as price and cost pressure make planning and controlling your internal logistics complicated and time-consuming. Manual effort is enormous Internal coordination processes are lengthy.
Mehr erfahren
Intralogistics (planning and optimization)

Intralogistics (planning and optimization)

Intralogistics or internal logistics covers the flow of materials, information and goods within a factory. External logistics, which relates to the transportation of goods outside a company, must be distinguished from this. Intralogistics encompasses all processes and areas within the factory.
Mehr erfahren