Understanding workforce management …viewer.media.bitpipe.com/1296686820_642/1297438128_277/...outsourced payroll provider, and other enterprise software. For Aker Shipyard, the need

E-Book

Understanding workforce

management technologies for

manufacturing

Workforce management software can help manufacturers improve

operational efficiency and reduce costs by streamlining scheduling,

budgeting, and labor planning. Thanks to the web and ubiquitous

mobile platforms, it is now more accessible outside the office and

around the world. In this eBook, learn the benefits of automating

workforce management and get expert advice on getting started.

Plus:

Understand how workforce management differs from similar tools

Know when a best-of-breed product makes sense

See why successful deployments hinge on mastering labor rules

Read how workforce management could become a core enterprise

application

Sponsored By:

http://www.infor.com

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Understanding workforce management technologies for manufacturing

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E-Book

Understanding workforce

management technologies for

manufacturing

Table of Contents

Five things that define workforce management software

Tips for choosing workforce management software

Know the rules: Workforce management best practices

Web-driven workforce management software branches out

Resources from Infor




Five things that define workforce management software

By Beth Stackpole, SearchManufacturingERP.com contributor

Compared with other enterprise applications, workforce management software may defy

easy categorization into a standard set of features or homogeneous market. Yet the

software delivers a clear set of benefits that can help manufacturers improve operational

efficiencies and control labor costs.

The workforce management software picture is blurred, partly because some functions can

be found tucked inside nearly every major enterprise application, from mainstream ERP and

human resources systems to more specialized customer relationship management (CRM)

and manufacturing execution system (MES) platforms.

For example, human resources systems handle many aspects of payroll, while MES can

track basic time and attendance for workers on the shop floor. There is some overlap with

labor management systems, used not just to track individuals’ performance, but to measure

the productivity of labor resources against predefined standards, allowing companies to

identify bottlenecks and monitor performance levels. While these other platforms provide

some benefits, the breadth of components in a standalone workforce management system,

when combined with integrated analytics, offers greater bang for the buck for delivering

labor-related efficiencies and cost savings.

In the wake of the global recession, manufacturers, in particular, are looking at any process

change or tool that can help them use labor more efficiently. Manufacturers must do more

with less, and having tools to better deploy human resources--assigning the right people to

the right tasks and eliminating unnecessary overtime--is a core element of their strategies,

analysts at Framingham, Mass.-based research firm IDC Manufacturing Insights noted in an

April 2010 research brief.




The five principal functions of workforce management software

With the bigger picture in mind, there are five core functions in workforce management

software, according to Gartner Inc., a research firm based in Stamford, Conn.:

• Labor scheduling, which can help manufacturers manage employees’ skills and

compliance requirements more effectively.

• Time and work data collection, for capturing and reporting highly detailed

information about labor use.

• Leave management, for processing paid time-off requests with visibility into the

staffing and liability implications.

• Task and activity management, which delivers a more detailed view of labor

management requirements to help with the sophisticated decision making required

for activity-based management.

• Time and attendance, the heart of any workforce management system, which

takes input from the other modules and applies rules against the reported times,

based on the company’s requirements.

When implemented together, these capabilities can positively impact labor costs, which

typically comprise anywhere from 20% to 70% of a company's expenses, according to Jim

Holincheck, a vice president at Gartner.

Cost savings come from schedule optimization, improved payroll and billing accuracy,

reduced “buddy punching” (industry slang for paying for unworked time), overtime costs

and leave liability, Holincheck said. In addition, workforce management software can reduce

the compliance risks associated with collective bargaining agreements and the ever-

increasing number of government regulations that affect labor and employment, he said.

The idea is to zero in on a company's core workforce-management issue. “Is it about union

contract compliance and paying people accurately or is it about trying to lower overtime

costs?” Holincheck said. “Which one you’re looking at places emphasis on a different

solution.”




Talent management is an especially critical area for many manufacturers, said Joe Barkai,

practice director at IDC Manufacturing Insights. With baby boomers set to retire,

manufacturers are facing a twofold dilemma in workforce management.

“It’s not only about the fact that there are going to be fewer people, but that most of the

people retiring are taking a lot of expertise with them,” Barkai said. “Companies in the

manufacturing, design and service phase are facing issues around how to capture the

expertise of those leaving and for those still with them, how to allocate those resources

most efficiently. That makes the issue of tracking [workforce-related] activities even more

critical.”

About the author: Beth Stackpole is a freelance writer who specializes in covering IT for

manufacturers.

To remain competitive in today’s global economy, you must address a number of key manufacturing issues, including the outsourcing dilemma, a widening skills gap, margin squeeze, increased competition, and escalating customer demand.

Plus, you must focus on controlling your most expensive cost—labor—more than ever before.

Optimize time and attendance management at every level of your enterprise—from employees to managers to payroll—with a proven software solution, Infor WFM Workbrain Workforce Time & Attendance.

Take 5 minutes to learn how you can:

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Tips for choosing workforce management software


Given the diversity of choices in workforce management software, it is imperative that

manufacturers key in on their core objectives and specific industry requirements to select a

vendor and tool set with staying power.

One of the more critical points is deciding between adding workforce management through

add-ons to existing enterprise platforms like ERP, manufacturing execution system (MES) or

customer relationship management (CRM) software or opting for a separate program.

Analysts say companies with complex payroll environments or a highly distributed, global

workforce are best served by best-of-breed vendors, specialists who tend to stay current

with the ever-changing rules of regulatory compliance.

“Here’s the main thing to keep in mind: If your payroll environment is even moderately

complex, then you should go best of breed,” said David O’Connell, senior analyst at Boston-

based Nucleus Research. “If you have more than a couple of unions, if you operate in more

than a couple of states, if you have many different pay grades -- all of these scenarios

mean there is some rule complexity. Like anything else in the software world, if someone

builds ERP applications, they are likely not as good at taking on that level of rule

complexity. Only best-of-breed vendors can.”

Focus on business process

Companies with globally dispersed workforces also have special considerations. Some

experts say enterprise suites with integrated workforce management systems capabilities

typically lack the functional breadth to have the multilingual and multicurrency capabilities

in best-of-breed packages, and they can fall short in addressing international labor-

compliance rules.

Manufacturers also have to consider functional scope and their need for integration when

evaluating products. While a manufacturer might kick off a workforce management software

deployment with basic time tracking and attendance, it might soon want to broaden the




implementation to support absence management or detailed labor management

requirements. The workforce management software must be able to scale to address such

impending needs. Manufacturers must also fully understand their integration points so they

can choose a vendor and platform that can sync up with their human-resources systems,

outsourced payroll provider, and other enterprise software.

For Aker Shipyard, the need to automate time and attendance tracking drove its initial

implementation of workforce management software, but its selection process hinged on

choosing a vendor that had a broader suite of features so the company could expand its

program.

“You have to have a long-term vision,” said Michel Boeckx, chief technology officer for the

Philadelphia-based commercial shipyard. “It’s important to see if your software can handle

what you need to do. You need a five-year plan.” Aker eventually added human-resources,

payroll and absence-management capabilities.

Because Aker’s business is heavily regulated, it was also critical to have a vendor that

makes it a priority to stay current with evolving payroll and personnel laws. Boeckx advises

companies with complex requirements like Aker’s to seek out workforce management

software providers that understand all the nuances of labor management in their specific

markets. Talking to reference customers, particularly those in a related industry, is a crucial

part of vendor selection, as is exploring the vendor’s support policies, since these are

mission-critical systems with little room for downtime, Boeckx said.

Making the right selection really boils down to an exercise in understanding, not just your

business, but your business processes, Boeckx explained. “Put your problems down on

paper and understand all the rules before you decide what system to buy,” he said. “That’s

how you make the match. The software vendors can say they do this, but if they don’t

support your business processes, it doesn’t much matter.”




Know the rules: Workforce management best practices By Beth Stackpole, SearchManufacturingERP.com contributor

Due to the invasive nature of workforce management software, manufacturers must have a

clear vision of what they hope to accomplish with the technology along with backing from

key influencers across all levels of the organization. Becoming familiar with workforce

management best practices is a good place to start.

Because workforce management tools impact all parts of an organization -- from human

resources and accounting to shop-floor workers -- it can elicit strong pushback. Both

salaried and hourly employees tend to resist change and can respond with wariness when

routine time- and labor-related practices come under scrutiny.

Engaging stakeholders right from the start can help zero in on the key pain points of labor

resources and foster the buy-in necessary for widespread adoption, experts say. In addition,

getting stakeholder participation in defining the rules “environment” helps to ensure that

the workforce management system reflects the right business processes and industry

regulations it needs to deliver optimal cost savings and labor efficiencies.

Surveying employees and working with stakeholders to get a handle on the rules

environment at the outset is a good place to channel project resources, according to David

O’Connell, senior analyst at Boston-based Nucleus Research. Statistics show that companies

overpay employees 1.2% on average, a number that tends to be even higher in companies

with more complex rules environments, O’Connell said.

“Rule complexity causes you to make errors and overpay employees,” he explained.

“Surveying is a good place to spend money because when you automate and automate well,

you’re going to eliminate a high percentage of those errors.”




Enlisting project champions for workforce management software

Gaining the support of rank-and-file project champions was critical to the successful

deployment of workforce management software at BAE Systems Southeast Shipyards in

Mobile, Ala., according to IT Director Craig Honour. The company, which earlier this year

won Nucleus Research’s Technology ROI award for its implementation of workforce

management software, was able to save $1.9 million annually thanks to decreased

administrative time, reduced paper costs and increased productivity that resulted from

using the system.

From the very beginning, Honour’s team worked with stakeholders on everything from

defining pain points to specifying system requirements to participating in the selection team

that evaluated workforce management software vendors. Keeping stakeholders involved

every step of the way gave them ownership and a drive to make the deployment succeed.

“When you are trying to sell an IT system to blue-collar workers, it’s a hard sell,” Honour

explained. “Getting them involved early made life easier.”

The group of influencers was also critical in getting others onboard. “Now you have a cadre

of owners who are not badmouthing a system, but are telling their buddies that this is good

for them and can bring big changes,” Honour said.

Another best practice for successful deployment is conducting a pilot phase with the

vendor’s help before committing to a major purchase, according to Honour. “Doing a pilot

keeps the vendor engaged and gives you a leg up on implementation,” he said. “If the pilot

is successful, you accumulate lessons learned and tweaks that will be necessary for the go-

live implementation.”

Honour and other workforce management software practitioners recommend a number of

other best practices:

• Walk, don’t run. After creating a long-term vision and rollout plan for the software,

move forward with a phased deployment, starting with one group or location. Take

advantage of every small success to amass deployment best practices and get other

groups onboard.




• Don’t skimp on investment in training. These are complex systems that can

deliver huge results when used to their potential. Encourage stakeholders to

participate in training and maintain a tracking list to stay on top of deployment

issues.

• Exploit reporting capabilities. Much of the power of workforce management

software lies in the reporting capabilities, which give companies visibility into

bottlenecks or inefficiencies that, when corrected, can deliver significant return on

investment. The lesson here: Don’t get so caught up in the day-to-day time-

tracking aspects of the system that you lose sight of the power of analytics.




Web-driven workforce management software branches out


Workforce management software will continue to emerge as a core enterprise platform as

new delivery models, Software as Service (SaaS) workforce management and support for

mobile devices expand its use, according to analysts.

With the number of remote workers on the rise, vendors of workforce management software

are revamping their product lines to add support for mobile devices and offering the option

to deploy the application as SaaS. New mobile workforce management apps that run on

smartphones and tablets can facilitate collection of time data and processing of time-off

requests and approvals by allowing workers to attend to such tasks when out of the office

and even off the company clock.

“Lots of people are working remotely, and the ability to give them self-service and do as

much as possible over the Web is really important,” said David O’Connell, senior analyst at

Nucleus Research in Boston. “If employees want to ask for a day off or change something

on their 1099 [tax form] and they can do it on their Blackberry in the parking lot or on their

PC at home, they can spend more time on the job.”

On-demand workforce management software is also catching on as a way to deploy the

software on a broader scale. With IT budgets remaining tight, the SaaS licensing model of a

monthly, per-user subscription fee enables manufacturers to fund deployment out of their

expense budgets instead of having to gain time-consuming approval for a major capital

expenditure. In addition, workforce management software is typically quite complex, and

SaaS workforce management implementations, which are managed and run by a third-party

software provider, free up manufacturing IT departments to focus on other important

systems.

Out on the horizon, social media technology is also likely to play a role in shaping workforce

management software. New, Facebook-like collaboration features will be folded into existing




workforce management software to give companies better insight and access to the

expertise that resides in their talent pools.

Evolving use cases for workforce management software

Beyond technology advances and support for new platforms, workforce management

software will evolve in other ways, according to analysts. The continued globalization of the

workforce will have companies seeking a more standardized approach so they can optimize

labor use on a global scale instead of managing it in silos, be it by business unit, regional

plant, or country.

Continuing economic pressures will also have manufacturers looking to deploy workforce

management software in new ways. As SaaS and mobile support make the software more

accessible, manufacturers will begin to experiment with the technology beyond the

traditional uses of tracking and scheduling hourly employees. Having proved the return on

investment from deploying workforce management software to optimize labor on the plant

floor and in the warehouse, manufacturers will seek to leverage their applications to

manage salaried labor, where punch clocks are not involved.

Manufacturers will also begin using the software for the detailed time tracking needed for

activity-based costing, which will give them a clearer picture of profitability on a customer

or product level. In this way, they’ll gain visibility into such metrics as the amount of time it

takes to produce a particular product or the quality issues of one manufacturing line.

“Manufacturers want to go to a lower level of granularity [in looking at labor costs] to

support product and customer profitability,” said Jim Holincheck, vice president at Gartner

Inc, a research firm based in Stamford, Conn. “Especially in industries with tight margins,

there’s an increasing desire for organizations to get better at doing this so they remain

competitive going forward.”




Resources from Infor

Manage Your Workforce Like the Asset That It Is

The ROI of Your Labor Force

Ensuring Enterprise Wide Compliance for Your Labor

About Infor

Infor WFM Workbrain helps the world’s largest organizations to automate and standardize

their time and labor processes to reduce costs, increase profits and boost employee

satisfaction.

http://www.infor.com/content/whitepapers/manage-workforce.pdf/?ok=yes?cid=AMER-ALL-US-WFM-0111-WFM-Q3-TECHTARGET-WEDR5

http://www.infor.com/content/whitepapers/roi-labor-force.pdf/?ok=yes?cid=AMER-ALL-US-WFM-0111-WFM-Q3-TECHTARGET-WEDR2

http://www.infor.com/content/whitepapers/ensuring-compliance.pdf/?ok=yes?cid=AMER-ALL-US-WFM-0111-WFM-Q3-TECHTARGET-WEDR3

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