Help on Schedule Plan Characteristics

To help you evaluate schedule plans, the following characteristics are provided for each plan.

• Plan ID: A code used to uniquely identify the plan.
• Name: The name of the plan.
• Applicability: The type of operations this plan is designed for.
• Teams Required: The number of teams (crews) required by this plan. A team may consist of one or more employees.
• Shifts: The different shifts used in this plan. For each shift, only the shift description and shift length are shown. The shift start or end time can be adjusted to fit your business operations so long as the shift length stays the same.
• Repeat Cycle: The number of days required for each team to complete its assigned shift sequence in a schedule plan. At the end of each repeat cycle, the team starts the same shift sequence over again.
• Rotation: For rotating plans, a team rotates from one shift to another according to a specific arrangement. In a forward rotation, the team rotates from a shift that starts earlier in the day to a shift that starts later in the day, e.g. Day to Swing to Night. In a backward rotation, the reverse is true. Many studies suggest that forward rotation is better than backward rotation since our body adjusts much better to changes in work shifts from earlier to later. The rotation speed is the speed at which the shifts are rotated. In a "fast" rotation, a team rotates from one shift to another once every few days or less. In a "slow" rotation, a team works the same shift for many days or weeks before rotating to another shift.
• Average Hours Per Week: This is the average number of hours worked by each employee per week based on the shift lengths and shift sequences for this plan.
• Staffing Fluctuation: The fluctuation in staffing level as the plan progresses from shift to shift and day to day. A plan is "balanced from shift to shift" if the new shift will be staffed by the same number of employees as the old shift. A plan is "balanced from day to day" if each day is staffed by the same number of employees. Note that by default, each team contains the same number of employees.
• Pluses: Positive aspects of the plan.
• Minuses: Negative aspects of the plan.
• Common Usage: Typical users of the plan.