A Practical Approach to Scheduling in Complex
Organisations

Introduction

For all industries, resource optimisation is important; however, for complex multi-skilled service organisations with varying demands and a constant need to ensure regulatory compliance it is critical.

Achieving and maintaining optimal resourcing is far from straight forward, involving extensive and dynamic information management and processing. Frequently, the scale of this task prevents full analysis, frustrates fully informed decision making and thus constrains effective optimisation.

However, the latest scheduling systems such as OneView overcome these barriers, offering new opportunities for margin and service improvement whilst ensuring full regulatory compliance, and commensurately reducing the risk of corporate litigation for non-compliance.

The need for resource optimisation

The process is not simple, however, and the risk of either under or over-resourcing can be high. Although over-resourcing may most obviously incur excess expenditure, under-resourcing can also be costly.

In resource intensive industries the pressure to drive margin improvement whilst enhancing customer service and ensuring full regulatory compliance creates a pressing demand for resource optimisation across workforce, equipment, activity, and logistic support.

When insufficiently resourced, the ability to efficiently operate can be quickly compromised through reduced workforce effectiveness and consequent staff dissatisfaction, with both further impacting customer service.

Resolving such issues as they occur can be costly in the immediate term as well as creating longer term adverse impacts on multiple levels. As a result, under-resourcing can thus become just as costly as over-resourcing. The need to find the optimal balance is therefore critical and pressing.