JOB SCHEDULING:
BUSINESS CONSULTANTS ADVISE ENGINEERS ON CRITICAL
IAN FEATHERSTONE, OWNER
OF GLASS HALF FULL
I advise on the importance of
accurate scheduling, using software.
Most of the businesses in the
engineering sector are adding value
with time and materials.
The service and profit risks from
estimating and managing materials
is reasonably straight forward,
especially for those with an
engineering mind.
Managing time and tasks is another
matter altogether. We can all
calculate or estimate the expected
time a task or a group of tasks
should take for a particular job,
however it gets more complicated
when the business grows to a size
were multiple jobs are happening
at the same time, with shared
resources and limited available
working hours. Add to this the
constantly shifting timelines, job
variations, non-workdays and
inevitable rush jobs, the task of
organising and matching the
right people to the right job, with
minimum downtime can, become
overwhelming and time consuming.
I have found that people with a
logical or engineering mindset can
quickly understand and implement
scheduling software to help them
plan and manage people, tasks,
capacity and most importantly make
promises to customers that they
can keep and minimise downtime
so the business can maximise the
amount of “billable hours” it can
charge out to increase the bottom
line.
If you are considering scheduling
or time management software,
then I recommend you look for a
system that has a demonstrated
track record of working effectively
for the engineering sector where
100% of the clients using the
software are engineers and other
custom manufacturers, where by
default the software has all the
necessary functionality to cope with
all the complexities that occur on
factory floors. The latest scheduling
softwares use tablets on the factory
floor, where factory staff start and
finish their jobs on their tablets
which enables automatic updating
of job status and live and accurate
scheduling. The software needs
to be easy to use, provide clear,
simple information and reports to
your people, is accessible from
anywhere and capture budget to
actual time data that can be used
for payroll and job costing, thus
giving you feedback to improve your
processes. Some provide excellent
reports from which you can give
your team feedback to help them
keep improving.
DAVID LAWRENCE, OWNER
OF LEAN MANUFACTURING
I consult to over 140 engineers
and other jobbing manufacturers
throughout New Zealand and
Australia on scheduling, shop floor
productivity and lean manufacturing.
I can say that the substantial
COMPONENTS TO JOB SCHEDULING
Working smarter; that’s what it’s all about. NZ Engineer News has approached three of the
most experienced business consultants working in the New Zealand engineering space to
advise us on job scheduling for engineers. Here’s what they had to say:
WORKSHOP
58 December 2019