Scenario
An electricity company has 70 technicians of different skills. These includes mechanics, electricians, and drivers. They want to assign the available technicians strategically, so that all requirements are covered using only necessary resources.
Challenge
On Monday, technicians need to carry out four activities: a meter reading, a power cut, an emergency inspection, and a facility check. Each of these activities have different needs, in terms of how many technicians are required and the necessary skill set of those technicians. There are currently eight technicians who have not yet been assigned activities for Monday, limiting the number of teams that can be formed.
It’s important that the appropriate number of technicians with the appropriate skill set are sent out for each activity. Too few resources means the activities can’t be performed, too many means that resources are being wasted.
Solution with Skill Configurations
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Each of their 80 Resources are assigned Skills, Qualifications, and Roles, including the eight technicians who haven’t yet been assigned work for Monday. The FSM keeps track of each technician's competency.
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Activities are assigned Skill Configurations and Skill Divisions. This lets the system know what combination of skills the activity requires, and what limitations there are about which skills can be shared by a single Resource.
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Based on the allocation of Skills among the Resources, the FSM determines that four total Resources are required to carry out all of the activities. This means that the other four (of the eight unassigned Resources) can be allocated to other tasks.