Rostima Helps Keep Your Shiftwork Staff Productive And Alert

Fatigue management software helps keep employees healthy, happy and industrious

17th May 2007 – Enterprise Workforce Management solutions provider Rostima has developed Fatigue Management logic to help organisations improve the productivity of shift based workers. The three adapted software modules with enhanced fatigue management functionality are the Schedule Creation Engine, the Working Time Engine and Duty Manager. The issue of fatigue in employees is widespread but its management is particularly imperative in industries that operate shiftwork such as transport, logistics and manufacturing and those that operate throughout the night such as the healthcare sector, events and hospitality.

Steve Aitken, Founder of Rostima, states, “Working nine to five is becoming a thing of the past. Fewer and fewer people now work a traditional shift and increasing numbers of staff are working through the night. Our fatigue management capability is designed to protect employees from damaging their health and aid organisations in operating the most efficient working patterns possible.”

The new algorithm in the Schedule Creation Engine has the capability to generate shift patterns and rosters based on minimising the fatigue index. The index measures fatigue on a scale of one to nine; with one being extremely alert and seven, eight and nine being high risk of fatigue and micro-sleep. From the workload - which must be pre-approved by the organisation - the shift start and finish times are created based on the enterprise agreement. When the optimal shift start and finish times have been established the pattern of shifts, which is based on individual staff members preferences, generates a logical sequence of days on and off and rest between shifts.

Aitken adds, “Enterprise Workforce Management is a real balancing act - after you build up the schedule you can run it through the index to check the fatigue in the shift.  We build the patterns and run them through this scale which then flags them to the users, alerting them of problems with the patterns. Users can also run their existing schedules through the index to see how their patterns look.”

The Working Time Engine tracks the changes made to the schedule after it has been published. This ensures that if individuals’ shifts are altered that it will track the start and finish times and shift patterns to prevent changes violating fatigue regulations that are in place. The Duty Manager determines what staff can do within a shift and ensures that suitable breaks are recommended to minimise fatigue.

Aitken concludes, “The software will automatically draw up an alternative schedule to optimise scheduling and avoid high numbers on the fatigue scale. This fatigue management capability is vital to ensuring all health guidelines are followed stringently in companies that have employees who do shift work.”

About Rostima
Established in 1996, Rostima is a leader in Enterprise Workforce Management solutions. The open, flexible technologies developed by Rostima enable organisations to optimise their labour schedules by matching workload to staff resources thereby increasing operational efficiency, reducing labour costs, improving staff retention and enhancing service levels.

Today, Rostima is defining the way organisations approach labour scheduling. Our flagship software Rostima enterprise plus incorporates workforce planning, optimised scheduling, time & attendance and employee self-service functionality, it has been selected by many large and medium-sized organisations in the transport, logistics, airport services, hospitality and retail sectors. Customers include Select Service Partner (SSP), DP World, Air France Services, ASIG, Swissport, Gala Coral Group, Australian Air Express and Taca Airlines.

For further information, please contact:
Nick Bolshaw / Laura Munns
The itpr Partnership
t: +44 (0)1932 578800
f. +44 (0)1932 578801
nickb@itpr.co.uk
www.itpr.co.uk