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February 2005

A Well Managed Workforce

February 2005

By: Robert Farina - CyberShift Inc.

In today's global economy, manufacturing executives are under increasing pressure to maximize margins and streamline operational efficiency to remain competitive. While tighter, visible supply chains, accurate demand forecasting and true collaboration with trading partners are necessary components of a successful manufacturing strategy, companies must also ensure a well-managed workforce. After all, human capital is the most costly resource of any business and the single greatest influencer of business performance.

Large manufacturing organizations with highly unionized workforces must implement flexible workforce management solutions that go beyond the basic time and attendance tracking in use at many companies today.

Today's environment requires greater visibility into workforce assets, using analytical tools and advanced scheduling features to ensure the right worker is at the right place at the right time. In addition, a well managed manufacturing workforce must adopt a comprehensive solution that not only automates union and pay rules, but ensures compliance with government regulations, including recent overtime adjustments to the Fair Labor Standards Act and corporate governance initiatives dictated by Sarbanes-Oxley.

Manufacturing executives can achieve higher levels of productivity and performance while lowering operational costs through the use of a Web-based workforce management solution. However, there are certain functions and traits that must be included in a solution for it to truly help manufacturers achieve their goals.

Time management

This is the functional foundation of a solution that both coordinates time entry and helps managers get a better view of their organizations. These capabilities should support essential functions including: time entry, evaluation and action; approval processing; exception, accrual and leave management; project accounting; labor distribution; time billing; and administration of legal requirements. With this functionality, managers can perform mass updates and preview the results before initiating business process or job allocation changes. For manufacturers, this means an end to the days of wasteful trial and error sessions. This also means an end to the inefficiencies and inaccuracies inherent with paper-based reporting.

Data acquisition

There must be a bridge from legacy hardware and employee-facing devices to the system. Comprehensive, reliable data exchange is important for organizations that need to maintain existing investments in employee-facing time capture devices while making improvements in the back office. Data acquisition capabilities must provide support for a broad variety of data acquisition devices used in a client environment, from traditional time clocks and badge readers, to newer proximity and biometric devices.

Scheduling

These capabilities allow managers to match the best people with the right job at the right time, maximizing the productivity of the workforce and the quality of the end product. This should be an integral component of any solution considered. Employees, contractors, managers and scheduling administrators must have the flexibility to replicate, improve and automate the daily scheduling processes. To allow this, a solution should support all aspects of employee scheduling, including overtime scheduling and monitoring, job-skill matching and worker substitution.

Process Automation

OSHA, HIPAA, FLSA, Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), FMLA - the list goes on.
With myriad federal and state laws on the books and union agreements and regulations to adhere to, manufacturing executives must choose a workforce management solution that utilizes a robust rules processing capability that increases efficiency and ensures compliance.

Whether functioning independently, or in combination with the entire solution, ruled-based automation also should form the basis of any workflow management toolset. Based on accepted industry-specific practices, a workflow engine should support sophisticated, existing workflow rules and process mapping-a feature that streamlines all activities and alerts users to activities that cannot be automated. Enterprises should also seek solutions that feature message routing and a workflow dashboard.

Of course, underlying all of this functionality, a solution must employ a scalable infrastructure that can accommodate the ever changing employment landscape with regards to union agreements, labor rules and accounting standards regulations.

Flexible technology architecture

A solution must also easily integrate with ERP, supply chain management and legacy systems already in place at manufacturing organizations, in order to share business-critical information and make that information truly useful for executives.

The workforce management software market offers a wide range of solutions that all claim to fit every user's needs. The best choice is a comprehensive offering that not only offers time management and scheduling functionality, but also provides tight integration with existing human resources and payroll systems. One that employs rules-based automation to allow manufacturers to be able to properly manage their most valuable assets - people.

Robert Farina is CEO of CyberShift Inc., www.cybershift.com, Parsippany, N.J., a provider of workforce management software and services.

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