Maintaining visibility over large operations spread across multiple areas is a challenge. Managers wanting more control over their teams should consider the benefits of software with smart resource scheduling
Smart resource scheduling utilises company resources, ensures compliance, and updates availability live.
- The software pulls information – the availability of specific operatives, plant, and vehicles, for example – from a real-time company database.
- It speeds up their allocation to jobs via drop-down menus and autofill.
- It manages and assigns on-site forms and job packs, also from the database. Edits and changes can be made and updated in real-time.
- It manages everything through an intuitive easy-to-use timeline.
- It sends out tasks lists and forms to operatives through an app.
- It creates a seamless flow of data between site and office.
How does smart resource scheduling help the management of worksites?
Smart-resource scheduling streamlines and automates setting up jobs and events, and manages everything within the company database.
It saves time and makes infrastructure businesses more competitive by:
- Providing effortless forward planning
- Keeping track of the locations of teams, the resources the teams are using, the work they’re doing
- Showing site progress in a visual form with confirmation of completed tasks
- Sending notifications for completed tasks if desired
- Tracking qualifications
- Speeding up the scheduling workflow and making it fool-proof. Changes to already assigned jobs are managed within the limits of the company database
- Logging changes and edits and assigning them to a user
- Assigning forms and linking them to tasks
- Dictate a specific task order, guaranteeing tasks get completed
And leads to:
- Clarity among operatives about what they’re doing
- A reduction in unnecessary communication and a simultaneous boost in focus for both office and site staff
- Peace of mind – the software eliminates human error and can ensure the quality of completed work via photo uploads
What can be scheduled?
The scheduler works by logging ‘events’, and assigning them to the company timeline for office staff to access and see.
Different events can be scheduled:
- Work
- Work enquiries
- Holidays
- Training
- Tasks
- Maintenance
- MOTs
- Services
As events are logged and plant, vehicles, and personnel are assigned, their availability is adjusted on the database, eliminating the possibility of scheduling errors and clashes.
Entries adjust information elsewhere too, from the BoQ and hiring to invoicing.
How does smart resource scheduling work in practice?
Setting up a job is full of time-saving steps:
Office staff
- Click on a day, create a work ‘event’, and set a duration for the event from a drop-down menu.
- Assign operatives – use pre-set gangs or assign operatives individually, easily click to add or remove people from the database.
- Assign vehicles and plant, with real-time defect status updates are immediately visible, eliminating the chance of assigning out-of-service kit.
- Type in the task for the operative to do and link a form.
- Send everything to the operatives’ app.
And if the job needs someone with a specific qualification, the software stops the job going ahead without allocating someone with that qualification.
Operatives
- Gain immediate access to their individualised schedule through the phone/tablet app.
- As soon as they finish tasks, operatives click a tick box on the app and complete any forms they’ve been assigned to complete.
- They upload photos of completed works or other required information, and this job task is confirmed as completed and immediately synced to the cloud.
- If operatives are working in areas with poor connectivity, they can still access their tasks and forms, press upload, and everything syncs when the operatives get signal.
Where to find out more about smart resource management
Smart resource management comes as a part of ‘field management software’. And field management software covers everything else needed to manage the operational flow between site and office.
Re-flow Field Management is one of the UK’s leading software providers. In a single package, the software gives businesses everything they need to run their operations and to gain visibility of their on-site work.
To discover more about smart resource scheduling visit the Re-flow Field Management website or call 01392 574002.
