Understanding Crew Shell Members and Composition

Overview

A Crew Shell's composition defines the specific, actual group of technicians assigned to a Crew Shell template for a particular day or period. While the Crew Shell template defines the requirements of a team (like its required skills and base shift), the composition determines who is on the team and available for dispatching. This feature allows planners to manage their teams dynamically.

The Manage Crew Shell Technicians feature is the primary tool to define and view these compositions. It provides a detailed overview, distinguishing between provisional and operational compositions.

Understanding Draft vs. Confirmed Composition Status

The FSM Platform uses a two-stage approach for Crew Shell compositions:

• Draft Composition (Provisional State):

  • Purpose: This is a working area where planners can add, remove, and reorganize technicians within a Crew Shell before finalizing the team.

  • Characteristics: Changes in Draft status are not yet "published" or active for scheduling purposes. This allows for iterative adjustments without impacting live operations.

  • Visual Indicator: In the Crew Shell Calendar, a draft composition is indicated by an icon showing "Changes have been made to the previously confirmed crew shell," typically with an orange background on the composition card.

  • Workflow: After making changes in the Draft Composition, a user must explicitly "Confirm" them to move the composition to the Confirmed state.

• Confirmed Composition (Operational State):

  • Purpose: This represents the finalized, operational composition of the Crew Shell for a given day.

  • Characteristics: Technicians in a Confirmed composition are considered active members of the Crew Shell and are accounted for in scheduling. The personal calendars of these technicians are temporarily overridden by the Crew Shell's calendar.

  • Visual Indicator: In the Crew Shell Calendar, a confirmed composition with no pending changes is indicated by an icon showing "Crew shell composition confirmed. There are no subsequent draft status changes to confirm," typically with a yellow background on the composition card.

  • Impact: When a composition is confirmed, all existing and future plans related to the Crew Shell are attributed to the newly allocated technicians. If a technician is part of multiple Crew Shells on the same day, a separate calendar entry is added for each.

Roles within a Crew Shell: Foreman (Team Leader) and Assistants

Each Crew Shell composition must have at least one designated Foreman (also known as a Team Leader). All other members are considered Assistants.

• Foreman: The primary technician responsible for leading the crew. Only one foreman can be designated per Crew Shell.

• Assistants: Supporting technicians who work under the foreman.

Automatic Foreman Assignment

When technicians are added to a newly created Crew Shell that has no existing foreman, the system automatically assigns the first technician added as the foreman. If a foreman is already present, all newly added technicians are designated as assistants. This automatic assignment can be manually overridden.

Technician Assignment Validation and Constraints

When assigning technicians to a Crew Shell, FSM performs several validations to ensure valid and conflict-free compositions:

• No Double Booking: Technicians cannot be simultaneously assigned to another fixed or free team, or have existing activities as single resources for the same day, unless there is no overlap in their shifts. If a conflict is detected, the system warns the user and offers options to either exclude the conflicting assignment or proceed and override the previous one.

• Crew Shell Status: Members can only be assigned if the Crew Shell is active, has a defined shift in its service calendar for the current day, and has no activities currently "in charge" or "in execution." The calendar end date cannot be in the past (though cross-midnight shifts can start in the past).

• Minimum/Maximum Members: The system checks if the addition or removal of technicians violates the configured minimum or maximum number of members for the Crew Shell. Warnings are displayed, but the user can often proceed if necessary.

• Virtual Scheduling Alerts: If a Crew Shell member has scheduled activities in one or more virtual scheduling models, a non-blocking alert will be displayed during composition confirmation, indicating the involved models. Users can proceed or adjust the composition.

Managing Skills in Crew Compositions

The "Missing Skills" calculation is a dynamic feature that helps ensure Crew Shells have the necessary capabilities for assigned work.

• Required Skills (Crew Shell Property): These are the skills inherently needed by the Crew Shell for its operations.

• Owned Skills (Technician Property): These are the skills possessed by individual technicians.

• Missing Skills (Dynamic Calculation): FSM compares the Crew Shell's Required Skills with the Owned Skills of its currently assigned members. Any required skill not covered by the assigned members is listed as a Missing Skill. This informs planners about skill gaps and aids in selecting appropriate technicians.

Using Members from Other Operation Centers (Resource Loans)

FSM supports the functionality of assigning resources (technicians) from one Operation Center to a Crew Shell located in another Operation Center.

• Requirement: For this to work, these resources must be "on loan" from their source Operation Center to the destination Operation Center (the one the Crew Shell belongs to) for the specific days of use.

• Further Reading: For more detailed information on configuring and managing resource loans, refer to the "Resource Loans" page in the Community Portal.

How Crew Shell Composition Impacts Personal Calendars

When a technician becomes part of a confirmed Crew Shell composition, their personal calendar is temporarily overridden by a copy of the Crew Shell's calendar.

• Overriding Calendar: This new calendar, identifiable by a specific icon, reflects the Crew Shell's shift and prevents manual creation, modification, or removal of other shifts, absences, or on-duty availability for the technician during that Crew Shell's shift.

• Reactivation: The technician's personal calendar is reactivated only when they are removed from all Crew Shells.

Recap and Next Steps

Understanding Crew Shell members and their composition is vital for effective resource management in FSM. The distinction between draft and confirmed states provides flexibility, while the validation rules ensure data integrity.

You can now:

• Manage Crew Shells: Learn the practical steps for adding, removing, and confirming technicians within a Crew Shell.

• Configure Crew Shells: Understand how to set up the foundational parameters for Crew Shells, which influence composition behavior.

• Use the Crew Shell Calendar: See how composition status impacts what's visible and editable in the Crew Shell Calendar.

• View Crew Shells in the Daily Plan: Understand how these compositions are reflected in the Daily Plan for scheduling.