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Aerocare rostering system to boost work-life balance for shift workers
Biarri, a global provider of mathematically powered web based software, systems and analytical tools today announced a new project to improve the work-life balance of employees of Australia’s leading airport ground handler, Aerocare.
The new project is stage two of the Aerocare Resource Optimisation System (AROS) rollout, which will see AROS produce rosters that are not only efficient but also maximise ‘likeability’ for employees and consider individual preferences.
Biarri Managing Director Ash Nelson said “Already early in its rollout, AROS has drastically reduced the time taken to produce rosters and provided gains for Aerocare in terms of aligning shifts with requirements, even as flight schedules change.”
“This next stage will ensure rosters are better optimised for individual Aerocare staff, enabling things like timely leave approval, automation of shift swaps and taking personal preferences into account.”
“Most unique in this process is the fact that we’re seeing a company making a significant investment in system enhancements that are focused purely on the wellbeing of employees,” Mr Nelson said.
Aerocare CEO Glenn Rutherford said: “We’re looking forward to using this powerful tool which we we expect will improve staff engagement, retention and service.”
“Shift work can be challenging for many reasons, and the ability to make rosters more predictable and better suit individual needs should have a big impact for our staff,” he said.
Features of the new system
Consideration for individual preferences, including:
- Unavailable time to allow for study and other commitments
- Preferences for working split shifts or not
- Target number of hours
- An optimisation engine designed to maximise ‘likeability’ of rosters including
- Maximising the number of consecutive days off
- Progression from early shifts to late shifts to minimise fatigue
- Automation of shift swap approvals, enabling unlimited shift swaps
- Improved timeliness of annual leave approval
- Ability to improve equity of hours assigned to individuals with similar skills, experience and performance
- Automation of staff notification for every change to their roster
- Better visibility of rosters to supervisors so they can make better decisions about who to call in for additional work
- Improved forecasting of recruitment requirements to avoid periods of staff shortage and oversupply and enable Aerocare to maximise hours allocated to people who want to maximise their earnings.
About Aerocare
Aerocare is the largest ground handler within the Australian and New Zealand region, with 3,000 team members currently servicing 3,200 flights per week and 41,200 passengers per day.
About Biarri
Biarri is an Australian based company that delivers mathematical optimisation and analytics capability through web-based applications around the world to help businesses deliver significant savings and better utilise their resources. With clients across many industries in Aviation, Rail, Transport and Logistics, Data Analytics and Energy, Mining and Infrastructure, Biarri ensures businesses spend less time worrying about IT and instead focus on making smart decisions quickly and easily.
The role of people logistics in oil and gas projects
Efficient and effective logistics is vital to large Oil & Gas projects – equipment must be transported to work sites and raw products need to be processed and then delivered to customers, often using multiple modes of transport in a complex supply chain. In addition to this complexity, another important part of the overall logistics problem is people logistics – How do we move personnel to and from a worksite both safely and efficiently?
Why should I invest in personnel?
Particularly in Australia, where many work sites exist in remote areas, it is not always feasible to relocate employees and their families to a town near the work site. As a result, many workforce personnel are employed on a fly-in fly-out (FIFO) or bus-in bus-out (BIBO) basis, where the employer is responsible for moving personnel to and from the work site.
A 2013 report from Ernst & Young indicated that human capital deficit is one of the top ten risks facing the global Oil & Gas industry, affirming that
as the sector develops technologically . . . companies that can retain and mobilize people will be able to sustain their competitive advantage.
Effective and efficient personnel mobilization is crucial to any significant oil and gas project. Research published in 2012 by the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government (ACELG) into the prevalence of FIFO in Australia predicts that percentage of Australian mining sector jobs filled by FIFO roles will only increase over the coming years.
Improper workforce utilisation increases susceptibility to many internal and external issues, such as: a high employee turnover, high ongoing operational costs to the business, and under- or over-allocation of staff to specific jobs.
Analytics to cut through complexity
People logistics for a large project requires the coordination of travel and accommodation for hundreds, sometimes thousands of people in various remote locations. As with traditional logistics, several crucial decisions have to be made including BIBO vs FIFO, choice of airports or bus routes and staff roster schedules. In addition to this complexity, working with personnel often requires much greater scrutiny – we don’t always require a minimal-cost solution – we need to balance cost, project risk, employee safety and employee satisfaction.
Trying to weigh up all these variables and make decisions in an intelligent way for all of the personnel involved in a project very quickly becomes complex. A 2014 interview by Mining Australia notes that “for many companies [workforce management] is manual, or only semi-automated, which increases the risk of error or processing inefficiencies, increasing costs”. Managing a large workforce is difficult, and only with the right technology can companies provide efficient and effective workforce management.
Through analytics companies can cut through the complexity involved in workforce management. By considering specific variables and how they affect outcomes companies can make better decisions.
Analytics empowers organisations through quantitative justification so that decision makers can be certain that employees will be spending less time in transit, and working on the right jobs at the right times, with the right people.
Biarri and People Logistics
Biarri delivers consulting and SaaS solutions to provide the right technology to enable effective workforce management.
Biarri has a proven track record, delivering people logistics and FIFO solutions for Oil & Gas and Mining companies in Australia including Santos, BMA, and Arrow Energy.
To learn more about how Biarri can help your organisation benefit from analytics and optimisation for people logistics get in touch today!
An optimised approach to Coal Train Crew Scheduling
Rail is frequently used for moving coal between mines and ports, and interactions between train and crewing requirements can create highly complex problems.
Recently Matt Herbert, an optimisation consultant at Biarri Commercial Mathematics was invited to present an approach to Coal Train Crew Scheduling at the Queensland University of Technology, hosted by ASOR.
Matt provided insights into the problems many mining and rail companies face when scheduling their crews. His formulation considered many aspects of the real world problem, including restricting the number of crew changes on each service, and variable start times for crews.
This approach is able to produce weekly crew assignments with high utilisation in run times of around an hour, down from existing manual methods requiring a day or more.
Have a look at Matt’s Presentation
