Improve Service Levels by Using On-Demand Labor
In this article, you’ll learn the steps you must take to address service levels and grow beyond the status quo with on-demand labor.
The Future of Manufacturing and Logistics
Frontline Supervisors
Explore how leveraging Veryable helps you eliminate common operational challenges and meet your objectives with ease as a
frontline supervisor in a manufacturing or distribution facility.
Your Priorities & Objectives
As a frontline supervisor you're in charge of executing the production schedule so that product gets to the customer on-time and at an optimal cost. You also lead the communication across your team and coordinate with other parts of the business to solve operational problems and identify risks that put on-time delivery and cost targets at risk. Frontline supervisors will encounter new challenges every day, and tough expectations from customers can create additional challenges. Most challenges fall within these buckets:
- Tools – without the right tools it's hard to know what you need to do, when you need to do it by, and how much you actually need to do. Material availability, equipment downtime, and due date changes all have ripple effects on the plan. Real-time data is needed, and plans should change with them. When tools are not integrated with all of your systems or will be outdated in the near future, this means you'll have to spend time on replanning instead of execution.
- Resources – while equipment capacity is important, most equipment has downtime and it's the labor or material that actually constrains it. Without the right amount of labor, the right skills, on the right shifts it will be hard to hit your goals on-time and on budget, and even harder to make up missed time.
- Time – misses to a production schedule requires that time to be made up outside of the schedule so it doesn't push out completion dates. These misses typically snowball to off-shifts or to the weekend where overtime is needed to catch up and puts the frontline leader in a position to choose between being on-time or missing cost targets. In areas that are scheduled 24/7 it is simply impossible to make up for missed time, and that part or work center become a bottleneck for the whole operation.
Without having the tools, resources, or time needed to do the job, production misses and late deliveries are inevitable. Because of the impact this has on operations, frontline leaders typically have to report out and explain those misses along with recovery plans and corrective actions. With a constantly changing plan, normal manufacturing issues, and inconsistent resources, a frontline leader spends the day fighting fires and trying to make the most out of each hour in between attending meetings.
The Veryable Solution
Veryable’s On-Demand Labor Marketplace
Labor will directly or indirectly impact every aspect of your operational performance. It is also one of the largest expenses on your P&L. Working to eliminate labor waste (having too much, or not enough) will allow you to move the needle operationally and financially.
Leveraging Veryable’s On-Demand Labor Marketplace to build your labor pool will allow your team to scale labor up and down in real-time and in lock step with actual daily demand. Having this capability across all areas, all work centers, and all shifts will give your operations at least 3x greater agility. Using this when, and only when you need it will drive out excessive overtime costs during high demand periods and lost productivity during low demand periods. Additionally, by matching headcount to demand on a daily basis, you’ll be able to maintain a lower more constant cost per unit.
Veryable's Workforce Management Tool
Veryable’s Workforce Management Tool ties together multiple systems (ERP, WMS, MES, HRIS, etc.) to use real-time data to automate the labor planning process and guide decision making. This eliminates costly forecasting inaccuracies, and enables performance-based decision making without the need for tedious spreadsheet updates or back-of-the-napkin estimates. Plus, with Veryable's on-demand marketplace accessible within this tool, you can fill any gaps in your operation across all areas and shifts on short notice. The best part is, real-time performance data is visible in just clicks for both full time employees as well as Veryable Operators.
Together these tools will optimize your use of labor and help you to operate more efficiently and cost effectively. Now, instead of spending hours and hours juggling multiple tools and spreadsheets each week, you can let Workforce Management do the hard work. Then, when things pop up out of nowhere or an opportunity presents itself, you can leverage Veryable’s On-Demand Labor Marketplace to respond in real-time and fuel your desired output. This makes you faster, more efficient, and gives you an edge over the competition in numerous ways.
What You Can Accomplish
Leveraging Veryable's On-Demand Labor Marketplace to build a flexible extension of your full-time workforce will enable your team to scale labor capacity up and down in real-time to mirror actual daily demand. This has numerous operational benefits...
Address Production Outliers
Bringing in supplemental labor can help your team to:
*Tackle stranded or aged orders
*Break work in process bubbles
*Recover from quality issues & material delays
*Eliminate past due backlog
Increase Throughput & Productivity
Adding support in bottleneck areas means you can stop watering down the output of your skilled workers with non-critical tasks and allow these skilled workers to produce more
Manage Demand Variation
* Flexing labor capacity daily helps you maintain short lead times and perfect service at an optimal cost per unit
* Unlimited flexible capacity means you can accept new orders that would have previously constrained capacity without the need for mandatory overtime
* With the ability to respond in real-time, you no longer have to hope and pray your demand forecasts are 100% accurate
Location Perimeter Feature
In your business portal for Veryable's on-demand marketplace, you'll have the ability to create a digital fence around your facility, which operators will have to be within to validate their attendance.
Visualize Labor Needs
By integrating with your existing systems, Workforce Management uses real-time data to predict upcoming labor needs and identify potential gaps in your operation.
Text-To-Schedule Feature
Need to add or remove labor hours from a shift? Simply send out a message to the appropriate workers with a VTO or VTI request and allow them to accept the offer with a simple text response. The system will then add or remove them from the schedule and update your planned output for that shift.
Platform Features
Tools & Features That Help You Get The Job Done
Case Studies
Stories From the Real World
Hear from other frontline supervisors how Veryable helps them reach their goals with ease.
What Frontline Supervisors Are Saying
Resources
Our Point of View
Explore our thought leadership blog for valuable insights.
Four Benefits of a Labor Pool During Your Busy Season
In this article, you’ll learn the benefits of a labor pool during your busy season and when you should start building one so that you can rely on it when the time comes.
Clean Up Your Shop Floor
If your production facility or shop floor is struggling to maintain consistent results or reach productivity targets, then it’s time to step back and consider taking a more basic approach and cleaning up your facility.
Getting Started With On-Demand Labor
Creating your free business profile only takes 5 minutes. Our team of experts will reach out shortly
after to answer any questions you may have and ensure that your team is setup for success.
