Introduction to Scheduling Optimization

Introduction

The System works as a tool supporting the activity of the Operations Centers (OC) for managing the scheduling of the teams’ activities over the territory, identifying and suggesting planning solutions for the saturation of the available operational resources, minimizing their displacements.
Next-Gen FSM Platform provides the daily/weekly processing of each OC, based on the following elements:

• In-house resources available to the OC; each resource is defined by a departure/arrival address, by a work calendar and by specific skills.

• The List of the activities in charge, including Work Orders and Agenda activities; each activity is defined by an execution time-frame (appointment slot for Agenda activities and key interval for work orders) and by the number of resources/skills required to perform it.

The daily processing is made according to two operating modalities:

• Manual Scheduling;

• Automatic Scheduling.

The scheduling process results in the assignment (either manual or automatic) of a sequence of daily tasks to each resource, complying with the following constraints:

• Compatibility between the skills, provided by the resource and those required to carry out the activity;

• Time-frame to perform the activity;

• Availability of the resources throughout the day.

The automatic assignment is intended to minimize the overall displacement time for the OC; however, the user is provided with a set of dedicated tools for editing the proposed scheduling.
Final scheduling will result from a set of scheduling processes and possible further integrations and changes, made by the planner user, through the manual functionalities, available in the daily plans.
The planning deemed as definitive and confirmed by the responsible technician and then is sent to the mobile devices, provided to the operators.

The Scheduling section provides the dedicated functions for scheduling the activities, created by the application or proceeding from the external systems, to assign them to the operational resources. The Dispatcher is supported by the System when scheduling the WOs, complying with the features of the specific activity types and the availability of Operators. The scheduling is made according to two operating modalities:

• Manual Scheduling, providing the plans for manual planning, such as:

  • Daily/Multi Day Plan: actual or “real” world daily/multi day scheduling section, which confirms a simulation or the aggregation of the results from the different simulations, obtained through the crystallization of the “virtual” world;

  • Weekly Plan: actual weekly scheduling section.

• Automatic Scheduling, section dedicated to:

  • simulating different scenarios according to the set of the resources to schedule or activities to assign;

  • comparing the results of the simulations;

  • integrating/reviewing possible System proposals through  the manual actions;

  • identifying the solution deemed as the “best” available one;

  • confirming planning as actual (crystallization action);

  • parameterizing skills and the number of resources, needed for performing the different activities;

  • parameterize the resources and their address, as well as the work calendar and skills of the work teams, involved in the scheduling process;

  • parameterizing the simulation rules for creating and organizing the list while developing the Model: rules will be set for organizing the activities according to the specific WO Filters-WO Priority-Simulation Rules;

  • parameterizing the actual Scheduling Models defined by the simulation rule (for selecting/organizing the list of activities) and by the resources/work teams, as well as by the simulation or “virtual” environment.

The two main entities involved in the automatic scheduling process are:

• Resources;

• Activities.

The main characterizing elements of the resources dedicated to scheduling are:

• Addresses, associated with the resource (with possible differentiation between the start and return point);

• Movement Type: it specifies the type of vehicle/displacement modality used by the resource (i.e. car, bike, on foot) and allows to differentiate the traveling speed based on the type of movement associated with the resource;

• Clocking in/out: the system provides the functionality for recording the start/end of the working day schedule on the mobile application; this option is combined with the server ability to define three available behaviors in terms of scheduling process:

  • Resource not declaring the clocking in/out (the resource is considered as always available for scheduling);

  • Resource with a request for clocking in/out, which is mandatory for assigning interventions (standard scenario of resources operating in Emergency Service, whose presence on duty shall always be clearly pointed out for the automatic assignment of the activities);

  • Resources with a request for clocking in/out for mobile operations, only: resources can be scheduled even if their presence at work has not been declared (but is still essential to the performance of field interventions).

• Scheduling areas: all resources associated with an Operations Center are enabled by default to operate on the entire territory of the Operations Center; however, specific sub-areas and constraints shall be defined for the single resource, who shall only operate within such limits (either permanently or on certain days). This option is supplied by the resource master data or by the Working Calendar, in order to set up a default configuration which may change from day to day. The territorial composition of an Area may be defined either in alphanumeric or cartographic mode, as previously detailed for the OC;

• Skills: generic skills provided by the specific resource which, together with the configuration of activities, determine the qualifications required to perform the given work types; the skills master data allows to associate a specific resource with one or many skills, highlighting possible differences in terms of "skill" level;

• Work schedule: each working day of a resource can be marked out by:

  • Start/end of the day;

  • Start/end of the break (not a strict constraint);

  • Duration of the allowed overtime;

  • Unavailability interval during the day;

  • Specific addresses.

• Further restrictions/additional features: the following may be defined:

  • maximum limit (in terms of number or duration) of the daily interventions per resource;

  • desired saturation percentage.

• Teams management: the system allows to manage both activities requiring a single resource and those requiring two or more resources, providing:

  • pre-defined composition of teams (for a specific working day);

  • system-managed definition of the team types and related composition throughout the automatic scheduling process.

The main characterizing elements of the activities dedicated to scheduling are:

• Geo-referencing of the intervention or of the subject of the intervention (customer/facility);

• Standard expected duration: information to possibly relate to the specific operation based on the work cycle, or received as an input from the external system;

• Time constraints: the planned execution time interval, more or less binding:

• Activities involving an appointment with a customer, for example, with available slots for a couple of hours;

• Activities (usually, maintenance ones) with a planning interval of several days or weeks;

• Activities to only perform on the given days of the week or time slots.

• Priority: to determine the importance of the activity to schedule, with respect to other activities/WOs;

• Pre-allocation to a resource/team, that can be:

  • Mandatory;

  • Preferential.

The system provides several options in terms of the activity configuration, depending on each specific Operations Center, for defining:

• The number of resources needed to perform the activity;

• The type of skills needed to perform the activity and the allocation modalities to the resources involved.

Teams may be configured either statically (using preset logical teams) or dynamically, i.e. by forming teams on a daily basis according to the demand, availability and skills of the field technicians.
Both activities, requiring a single resource and activities, requiring 2 or more resources, may be managed. In further detail, the system allows to:

• predefine the composition of teams (fixed composition or composition on a daily basis);

• determine the number and type of teams to enable and their composition, during the automatic scheduling;

• define the composition of the team based on the single intervention/WO, during the manual scheduling.

Specifically, fixed teams are based on the ‘nominal’ definition of teams, while dynamic teams are based on the concept of skill demand/offer related to the team.

A resource may be assigned to a single team per day.

The Scheduling Model  object is the main element the automatic scheduling functionalities of Next-Gen FSM Platform are based on.

In general, a scheduling Model allows the Planner of an OC to configure the different operational and organizational scenarios. Each Model/template is defined by:

• the number and type of the resources to consider in the scheduling process;

• the rules determining the inclusion and priority of the activities in the list of orders to assign;

• the scheduling policies to apply.

Relying on these templates, the system’s behavior may be simulated to locate and then adjust the configuration that best meets the specific needs.

Otherwise said, the scheduling Models allow the system to provide the “virtual scheduling context”, for:

• defining and simulating the scheduling criteria or policies the Planner wants to adopt for the different use cases;

• determining which of these Models should be taken as reference for the planning of each day/week/period.

Another important process which sees the crucial role of the Automatic Scheduling is the:

• Real-time reprocessing.