|
Putting Personnel Where They Are Needed
Efficient staff planning, rostering and allocation are essential for transportation operators. Good scheduling helps operators improve service quality and increase reactivity, particularly when cost is a primary concern. Scheduling is more than just assigning people to tasks at certain times. It is also about controlling costs while ensuring that feasible schedules respect safety, work and business policies and regulations.
When resources multiply, and regulations and rules increase, it becomes impossible to schedule and assign personnel through a manual system. The tremendous complexity of this task makes advanced planning and scheduling (P&S) solutions essential. From long-term strategic planning to short-term tactical scheduling, ILOG software helps operators to be more reactive, minimizing operational costs and guaranteeing that schedules are legal and feasible.
Essentials of scheduling
A flexible, business-driven P&S tool requires a combination of interactive 2D visualization and automated optimization -- primary capabilities provided by ILOG software.
- Visualization and editing
The first decision-support tool users encounter in resource scheduling and allocation should be a dynamic, interactive graphical user interface (GUI). Scheduling GUIs must provide a business-oriented view of plans and schedules. Typically, they should be based on a Gantt-type chart or space-time diagram to enable planners to fully visualize and modify resource schedules. GUIs must also allow the planners to evaluate a schedule, and quickly see the impact of changes. This is especially critical in short-term scheduling and D-Day management
- Automatic construction and updating
Automated scheduling can provide decision support by computing or suggesting new or updated schedules that are feasible and legal. Systems should allow operators to quickly adapt schedules, and reallocate resources to meet short-term, last-minute changes. Enforcing feasibility ensures that schedules will be executed without late tweaking to make them work. This reduces effort during implementation, and contributes to keeping actual operational costs closer to projections.
- Optimization
High-performance optimization and scheduling software rapidly computes schedules that most closely match criteria like cost, quality of service, demand coverage and employee satisfaction. Common examples include minimizing airline crew costs through pairing optimization; fairly allocating check-in counters and maximizing staff productivity at airports; and reducing the number of deadhead trains or trucks.
Full range of technologies
ILOG provides a full range of software technologies for implementing staff scheduling applications, proven in the field through more than a decade of service. ILOG optimization technology dominates the industry, offering the only software for exactly matching people to activities. ILOG business rule management solutions simplify the capturing and implementation of operational, legal and work rules. And ILOG visualization software gives users unequaled access to scheduling technology is, offering space-time diagrams, maps and the industry-standard Gantt charts.
Next steps
Learn more about how ILOG can help you cut costs and improve service through effective staff scheduling.
|
