by Philip Antoniou — Shift management — literally the recording and maintenance of shift rotas and work tasks — is a considerable concern for facilities management companies.
But it is not always a straightforward process because it involves the correct rotation of specialised personnel, good reporting systems, and as much automation as possible to save on manpower.
A good shift management system will use careful logging and reporting to ensure that each shift has done its rounds and duties and handed over any unfinished jobs to the next shift. Reporting in this way is a client requirement on most FM contracts as it provides essential information to managers — and, more importantly, ensures that all jobs are correctly closed.
But managing a shift well means more than simply making an end-of-shift report. Larger FM contracts will use teams with specialist members in a shift, each one having his own role. For example, there may be a dedicated air conditioning engineer or electrician. Each of these specialist team members needs to add his observations and comments to the shift report. This makes the report a team effort — each shift member making a contribution towards it, with ultimate responsibility for completion residing with the shift leader. The shift leader is normally the person who obtains and compiles all this information into one coherent report.
Paper chase
Yet the reality of operating a paper-based system in a live environment is that it often becomes an unreliable and tedious process. Practically, a report such as this will usually take a long time to complete. To save time, most teams ask each member to write his own sections, but assimilating these into a single, final report results in the team leader having to copy and paste a lot of text, making edits at the same time. At the end of a 12-hour night shift this paper system often fails, owing to its complexity. Furthermore, by the time a report is completed, in many cases it will already have become irrelevant — superseded by the next shift’s solutions and issues. It builds a system that is constantly 12 hours behind the actual live processes.
Reconciling the edits
And as each team member who contributes a section to the report will have a different style and focus, the shift leader may not be able to reconcile these during edits. These reports, therefore, tend to have messy results. It is also likely in many cases that the team leader will not have the necessary knowledge across all areas to make substantial edits without changing the meaning originally intended by the specialist employees. There is a strong likelihood of human error creeping into these types of paper-based reporting systems.
And the complications don’t stop there. So far, what we’ve discussed are the relatively simple problems; they become more complex the deeper we dig.
On their rounds a team will observe issues that it cannot fix during its shift — problems with equipment, safety issues, overdue equipment services, faults with the building and so on. Such issues take a long time to fix — remedial actions may be needed, spare parts, or authorisation from a client to pay for the repairs. These newly opened and continuing issues cannot be fixed in a single shift, but must be passed to the following shift, which also needs to be fully aware of them so that work can continue until the issues can be closed.
A software-based shift log management system will manage all of these far better than a paper system. When reporting, each shift member submits his part of the report to the shift log system. The system tracks report entries to ensure that each member has completed his section of the report, and once he has, the shift leader is notified. The shift leader can then look at what each team member has written, make any edits needed, subject to his knowledge in that area, and submit the report. This creates a far more efficient, automated, computer-based system. Best of all, team members can complete reports at the same time and the shift leader doesn’t need to copy any text, saving significant hours of work.
At the same time, team members can also enter into the system newly opened issues that could not be resolved during their shift, as well as progress that was made with continuing issues, creating a list of unresolved problems in the system with real-time updates. All the unresolved issues can be automatically listed in the report but, more importantly, they will also automatically be carried over to the next shift to appear in that report as well. In fact, they stay in each subsequent report until a shift team manages to resolve an issue and crosses it off. At this point, it is reported once as completed, before being removed from reports altogether. In this way no issue is forgotten and each shift automatically knows which issues are still ‘live’.
From a managerial perspective, clients often want visibility to see that shifts are being carried out properly. A custom shift log management system does this perfectly. The finalised shift reports can be automatically sent to clients as a PDF document. This is a very valuable feature, as the reports are prompt and up to date, helping to assure clients that shifts are being completed efficiently and effectively, maintaining both schedule and productivity. With a shift management system, managers can even run ad hoc reports to see how quickly issues are being addressed and to monitor performance.
Meanwhile, the system itself can automatically pick up on problems such as delayed reports or issues that are not being corrected fast enough and alert management — or the shift leader — of their presence.
A niche industry
So why it is that so many businesses have failed to achieve or implement an automated system such as this? There are several reasons.
First, in terms of software development, FM is still quite a niche industry so that, although the solution is relatively uncomplicated, only a few companies have attempted to build a system dedicated to the job. Some financial management companies have simply tried to customise a standard database or other existing system to fit the job, but shift management is a unique task, requiring specific system functionality.
As a result, these customised database systems handle the job they are attempting to do relatively poorly. So until more software development players come on the market and increase the competition, the most reliable method for constructing a good shift management system is to build a custom software solution from the ground up. This way, the system is tailor-made for its environment, fulfilling all the specifications a client requires, no matter how specialised.
Furthermore, a fully customised and automated system such as this will be easier to use for the shift members. The decision has been taken to make life easier by installing a fully computerised shift management system — it is worth investing in one which is tailored not only to the needs of the business, but to those of employees as well.
To give an example, in the UK, Ad Finem built a shift log management system for Optimum Group Services which was initially implemented at a well-known Docklands data centre. Managers at the data centre found that the biggest benefits of the system were accuracy of data and continuity; open issues were carried over to new shifts, meaning critical information was never lost. The system moved away from the previous and more time consuming system based on Microsoft Word and Excel files, which required manual entry and sending.
The initial reason that the data centre concerned was keen for Optimum to move to a digital system with automated reports, was to give the data centre real-time visibility over Optimum’s work. The shift log fulfilled this requirement and its success has encouraged the data centre to fund further system development, using the same system expanded to cover a wider range of facilities management activities at the data centre.
There are pitfalls to be avoided when considering embarking on a switch to a software shift management system. But when executed correctly, these systems can be a great boon to any business. Shifts and issues are handled properly, while reports are compiled quickly and effectively. Report delivery is made more efficient than in paper-based systems, arriving while the details are still relevant to the next shift ahead.
Members of management can also create reports on demand, tracking the finding and solution of problems in real time. Unresolved issues are instantly handed over from one shift to the next, so nothing gets forgotten or lost and all teams are kept updated on progress. Finally, the automation of shift management means that systems become easier and faster to use, saving businesses money and time.
Combined, these features mean that the pay-off for these automated shift management systems is immediate, continuous and sizeable.
Philip Antoniou is managing director of Ad Finem
– See more at:http://www.fm-world.co.uk/features/feature-articles/shift-up-a-gear/#sthash.2vB4FDlD.dpuf