All-In-One software for Manufacturing Workforce Management with Time and Attendance, Shift Scheduling, HR management, Skills management and many more capabilities.
Manufacturing Scheduling Software
- · Reduce Labour Cost
- · Optimise Workforce Scheduling
- · Automate Clocking Systems
- · Streamline Operations
- · Increase Payroll Accuracy
- · Produce Real-Time Reports
Manufacturing industry faces a delicate balance between managing its workforce efficiently and ensuring that employees remain motivated and engaged. Softworks provides software that helps manufacturers streamline, automate and reduce manual tasks related to Employee Time and Attendance, Employee Scheduling, Skills and Training Management and more.
Efficiently manage and optimise workforce planning and scheduling, track employee working time, facilitate flexible working, achieve legislative compliance and manage absences. Together with a variety of hardware clocking systems, form a complete solution for Manufacturing Workforce Management.
Benefits of Workforce Management Systems
- Track, record and manage employee Time and Attendance.
- Install a Clocking System like Proximity Time Clock or Fingerprint recognition terminal.
- Create and optimise Shifts/Rosters.
- Manage HR or integrate with your existing HR system.
- Quickly fill shifts when unexpected Absences happen.
- Use Employee Self-Service App – Desktop and Mobile.
- Track Project and staff expenses.
- Stay on top of employee Skills, Training and certification.
- Implement Access Control to the factory or manufacturing areas.
- Eliminate time theft and “buddy punching” with biometric or proximity clocking.
- Eliminate errors associated with paper-based scheduling and timesheets.
- Ensure compliance with employment legislation and Health and Safety regulation.
- Integrate with all leading ERP and Payroll Systems.
- Reduce manufacturing costs and increase productivity.
Areas We Help
Manufacturing Clocking Systems
What We Do – The Softworks Story…
From Time and Attendance Tracking to a complete Workforce Management Solution…
Request a free Demo!
Take the first step towards a complete workforce management solution. Talk to us today!
At Softworks, we continually strive to empower organisations like yours by transforming complex operational challenges into streamlined, strategic advantages.
Today’s rapidly evolving business environment demands robust, integrated systems to manage your most valuable assets—your people.
This is precisely where our cutting-edge Manufacturing Scheduling/Rostering Software, as an integral part of a comprehensive Workforce Management (WFM) platform, comes into play.
Softworks’ Legacy of Employee Support
Softworks has pioneered and perfected cutting edge business solutions for over 35 years, cultivating efficient and flexible workplaces that can adapt to changing work trends.
Our solutions help optimise employee well-being, while fostering deeper employee engagement, driving profitability, and ensuring unwavering compliance. Through state-of-the-art software, we deliver the strategic insights you need to make informed decisions and achieve your organisational goals.
We have engineered our software platforms to make a positive difference in the working lives of your employees, their managers, and the organisation as a whole.
Become a Trust Partner
Softworks has been enabling organisations worldwide to streamline their processes for over 35 years—increasing productivity and reducing costs through superior management, scheduling, and workforce resources.
We have achieved this by offering flexible, intuitive solutions that cover:
- Time & Attendance
- Scheduling/eRostering
-
- Flexible & Remote Working
- HR solutions
- Absence Management
- Project Tracking
Our integrated approach allows organisations to drive efficiencies, better ensure compliance, reduce errors, and improve reporting—all while promoting a safe and positive working environment for all employees.
We’re committed to helping you gain a competitive advantage, today and in to the future.
Automating your Work Rules and Pay Policies
A core component of our WFM platform is the automation of the work rules and pay policies already in place in your organisation, enabling you to eliminate time-consuming manual tasks related to:
- Employee Time and Attendance
- Absence
- Flexitime
- Skills & Training management
We understand that the effective management of employee Time and Attendance, Leave, Rostering/Scheduling, and HR processes is critical to your organisation’s success and your employees’ satisfaction levels.
Our comprehensive approach helps achieve optimal operational efficiency and a truly engaged workforce, transforming the administrative burden of workforce planning into a strategic, profit-driving function that perfectly complements your production processes.
Optimising your Workforce with Softworks
The link between a precisely scheduled workforce and production line efficiency is undeniable.
Indeed, without an optimised workforce, even the most advanced machinery cannot operate at peak efficiency.
Our software ensures that the human element—the most critical and often the most variable resource—is managed with the same precision applied to material flow and machine operation, ensuring every shift contributes directly to your production goals.
Manufacturing Scheduling Software: The Smart Way to Plan
In the fast-paced, demanding world of manufacturing, efficient scheduling/rostering is a critical determinant of productivity, profitability, and competitive advantage.
Softworks’ Manufacturing Scheduling Software offers Automated Scheduling that moves beyond outdated, time-consuming and error-prone manual processes.
Forget the days of endless spreadsheets and supervisors desperately attempting to coordinate shifts with fragmented data. This approach invariably leads to missed deadlines, costly overtime, compliance breaches, and a workforce struggling with uncertainty and resentment.
Improving Workflow with Optimised Manufacturing Scheduling Software
Manufacturing operations, by their very nature, face immense pressure to optimise their productivity and operational efficiency. The global marketplace demands agility, cost-effectiveness, and the ability to adapt swiftly to fluctuating production demands.
While many manufacturers have heavily invested in automating their production lines and supply chain operations, the workforce management aspect, particularly scheduling/rostering, has often lagged.
This oversight creates a significant bottleneck: without an optimised workforce, even the most advanced machinery cannot operate at peak efficiency.
Addressing Complex Scheduling Challenges
Softworks’ Manufacturing Scheduling Software is specifically designed to address complex operational challenges head-on.
We don’t just offer a scheduling/rostering tool. Our software provides an intelligent solution that acts as a central hub, consolidating critical workforce information from scattered data into actionable insights.
By doing away with manual methods, our software ensures that every minute of employee time is optimised, every skill is utilized, and every shift contributes directly to your production goals.
With Softworks, you gain:
A Unified, Real-time View & Real-time Monitoring
Our system centralises all project and employee information, activities, and associated costs into one easy-to-use platform.
This eliminates the need to cross-reference multiple spreadsheets, emails, or disparate reports, providing a single, accurate source of truth for your manufacturing operations.
Managers receive Real-time Monitoring through event-driven data, allowing them to make instant and informed decisions based on facts rather than assumptions. This is crucial for maintaining line speed and responding to issues immediately.
Optimised Resource Allocation & Finite Capacity Scheduling
Manufacturing businesses often deal with diverse roles, specialised skills, and fluctuating production cycles. Our software empowers you to align workforce resources precisely with production demand.
Our solution manages Finite Capacity Scheduling, accounting not just for employee availability but also for machine capacity, Material Requirements Planning (MRP) output, and buffer times.
This effectively reduces overstaffing during slower periods and prevents costly understaffing during peak hours, ensuring you always have the right number of people, with the right skills, at the right time, optimising your Resource Allocation.
Enhanced Reporting and Analytics & Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Our system generates a wide range of insightful reports that can be viewed, printed, or exported for further analysis.
These reports offer deep insights into project status, financial performance, and Resource utilisation, empowering management with the knowledge to drive productivity and maintain control. Our comprehensive analytics helps managers identify trends and issues, and proactively plan for future production needs.
Furthermore, the system tracks and reports on crucial Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as schedule adherence, On-Time Delivery (OTD) rates, and Labour Costs per unit.
Improved Information Accuracy
Automated data capture for time, activities, and costs drastically reduces human error, ensuring that data related to time, costs, and tasks is precise and reliable.
This accuracy is fundamental for everything from accurate payroll processing to precise budget adherence and strategic planning.
One Softworks manufacturing client, Profile Developments, significantly benefited from our system’s ability to manage complex pay rules by combining time and attendance and roster information, ensuring accurate payroll data and eliminating manual workarounds.
Transform your Manufacturing Scheduling with Softworks
Softworks’ Manufacturing Scheduling Software transforms complex workforce planning into a strategic advantage.
We empower manufacturing companies to streamline their operations, ensuring efficiency and agility that can attract and retain skilled employees, and help make your organisation robust and ready for the future.
Optimise Your Workforce with Our Manufacturing Scheduling Software
Optimising your manufacturing workforce demands a strategic approach that integrates skills, compliance, demand, and employee preferences.
Softworks’ Manufacturing Scheduling/Rostering Software is specifically engineered to provide holistic optimisation, transforming your workforce into a highly efficient, productive, and satisfied team.
Our advanced scheduling capabilities are designed to deliver:
Intelligent, Automated Schedule Creation & Finite Capacity Scheduling
At the core of our solution is an eRostering/Scheduling Wizard that automatically builds optimised, fair, and rule-based schedules.
This powerful wizard considers a multitude of factors critical to manufacturing operations:
- Employee Availability and Preferences, taking into account individual employee availability and stated preferences, enhancing job satisfaction.
- Skill Sets and Certifications: Only employees with the appropriate skills and certifications are assigned to specific manufacturing tasks or machinery. This is vital for managing complex assembly or machine operation roles.
- Workforce Laws and Union Agreements: All schedules are automatically aligned with relevant workforce laws (e.g., European Working Time Directive, FLSA, Canada workforce Code) and any union agreements, preventing compliance breaches.
- Fairness Rules: To combat disputes and resentment, you can configure our software to reflect fairness rules regarding shift distribution, including public holidays/vacations, weekends, and night shifts. This reduces stress on schedulers and promotes a positive work environment.
This comprehensive approach ensures the “right person, with the right skills, is in the right place, at the right time,” maximising staff productivity and ensuring efficient operations.
Some of our clients even automate their schedules over a year in advance, providing exceptional long-term planning capabilities. The system’s ability to manage Finite Capacity Scheduling means that the resulting roster is compliant with HR rules and suitable for your specific production environment, accounting for machine downtime and production flow.
Integrated Skills & Training Management
Manufacturing requires a highly skilled and agile workforce. Our software seamlessly integrates with skills and training modules, allowing:
- Skill and Qualification Tracking: Maintain a precise record of every employee’s skills, qualifications, and certifications.
- Skill-Based Scheduling: Ensure that only qualified and available employees are included on the roster for specialised roles.
- Automated Alerts for Expiration: Receive proactive alerts when an employee’s skills or certifications are nearing expiration—crucial for maintaining compliance with safety regulations and operational standards in manufacturing. This also aids in workforce planning and development.
Dynamic Demand Forecasting & Optimisation
Our intelligent scheduling/rostering tools move beyond simple shift allocation.
They leverage Real-time Monitoring through current and historical data to build schedules that precisely align workforce resources with forecasted production demand.
This means:
- Minimised Over/Understaffing: The system helps prevent overstaffing during slower production periods and costly understaffing during peak demand, optimisingResource Allocation.
- Budget Alignment: Managers can work within predefined budget allocations to optimise schedules that control workforce costs effectively, aligning them with production targets.
This proactive approach ensures that your workforce can meet fluctuating manufacturing needs while optimising Resource Allocation and improving overall workforce efficiency.
This also ties directly into Material Requirements Planning (MRP) by ensuring the workforce needed to process materials is available when the materials are scheduled to arrive.
Real-time Gap Management, Bottleneck Identification, & Proactive Alerts
Unexpected employee absences or last-minute production changes can halt a manufacturing line.
Softworks’ Rota Management Software provides immediate visibility into staffing gaps:
- Real-Time Gaps Screen: Gain a consolidated view of schedule gaps, grouped by department, area, date, and severity, allowing for rapid prioritisation.
- Softworks Vacancy Alerter: Send email/text triggers to available and qualified staff who meet the criteria to fill open shifts. This ensures that production schedules are maintained without disruption.
- Bottleneck Identification: Identify where a lack of skilled personnel or available hands could cause delays in the production flow.
- Softworks Daily Planner Screen: Monitor staff throughout the day once shifts are filled.
Multi-site and Multi-department Capabilities & ERP System Integration
Managing complex rosters for manufacturing companies with multiple production lines, departments, and locations, can be a monumental task.
Our system is designed to manage and optimise rosters across your entire operational landscape, enabling effective team management across all units and locations. This ensures consistency and efficiency regardless of your operational footprint.
Crucially, the system is designed for seamless ERP System Integration. Exchange critical production data and Material Requirements Planning (MRP) to link your workforce plan to your organisation’s enterprise resource objective.
Visual Scheduling with Gantt Charts
For manufacturing operations where sequencing and timing are critical, the system provides visual scheduling tools, such as Gantt Charts, offering managers an over-view of entire production schedule.
This offers visibility of job sequencing and employee resources, making it easy to spot potential conflicts, delays, or Bottlenecks before they impact the final delivery timeline.
By delivering these robust features, Softworks’ Manufacturing Scheduling/Rostering Software empowers organisations to optimise their workforce, reduce operational costs, ensure compliance, and foster a highly engaged and compliant workforce, directly contributing to enhanced production efficiency and overall profitability.
What is Manufacturing Workforce Management Software?
Manufacturing workforce management software is a strategic technology solution designed to organise the working day in a way that maximises productivity and profitability.
We understand that your workforce is both your greatest asset and your largest controllable expense.
Our software moves beyond basic administrative tasks to build a bridge between your operational reality and your strategic goals.
Automate and Optimise your Diverse Workforce
Our software automates and optimises the complex processes of managing a diverse workforce with one unified platform that manages:
- Time & Attendance
- Labour Scheduling
- Absence Management
- Skills Tracking
For manufacturers, the core value lies in aligning labour resources with production demand. Instead of relying on error-prone spreadsheets, Softworks enables you to create cost-effective rosters that ensure you have the right number of people, with the specific skills and certifications required, in the right place at the right time.
Key capabilities include:
- Cost Control: We help identify and reduce hidden labour costs such as unapproved overtime, absenteeism, and lates, while minimising the need for expensive temporary labour.
- Agility: Our real-time data and analytical insights empower managers to react instantly to internal or external changes, adjusting schedules to meet fluctuating production targets efficiently.
- Compliance and Safety: We ensure strict adherence to health and safety legislation and union agreements. Our Skills Management module tracks employee qualifications and detects training needs, ensuring your operations remain safe and compliant.
Enhance Employee Engagement With Our WFM Software
Softworks enhances employee engagement through Self-Service tools, giving your staff control over their schedules and leave, which is vital for attracting and retaining skilled labor in a tight market.
By automating these critical functions, Softworks allows your planners and managers to focus their talent and energy on innovation and growth, boosting your organisation’s profit, efficiency, and staff retention.
Key Benefits of Softworks’ Manufacturing Scheduling Software
Softworks’ Manufacturing Scheduling/Rostering Software is a strategic investment that yields significant returns by enhancing efficiency, reducing costs, ensuring compliance, and empowering your workforce.
Our integrated solution seamlessly combines advanced technology with user-centric design to deliver measurable benefits across your manufacturing operations.
Here are the key benefits you can expect from Softworks:
Enhanced Compliance with workforce Regulations
We have designed our software to embed complex workforce laws, union agreements, and health & safety regulations directly into the system.
Create schedules automatically in full compliance with all applicable legislation, such as the European Working Time Directive or FLSA.
Other compliance-based features include:
- Proactive Breach Alerts: Highligh potential regulatory breaches, allowing managers to take immediate corrective action. This significantly minimises legal risks and potential fines.
- Verifiable Audit Trails: Gain a comprehensive, verifiable audit trail of all scheduling/rostering decisions and employee hours—invaluable for internal monitoring and external regulatory audits. This data is essential for tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) related to compliance.
- Data Security: Our entire platform is ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certified, guaranteeing that our information security practices meet the highest international standards and comply fully with GDPR, ensuring sensitive employee data is protected.
Reduced Operating Costs & Labour Costs
Our software ensures the optimal use of your existing workforce, minimising the need for costly overtime and temporary workforce.
Avoid overstaffing during slow periods and costly understaffing during peak times, directly reducing Labour Costs.
Other benefits include:
- Elimination of Administrative Burden: Drastically reduce the time and resources spent on manual administrative tasks with automated scheduling/rostering, time tracking, and leave management, leading to substantial administrative cost savings.
- Reductions in Payroll Processing Time: Our clients have reported significant reductions in payroll processing time, with one even halving the time spent on weekly payroll. The consolidation of data and elimination of errors can shave anywhere between 5% and 20% off an organisation’s overall costs.
- Minimised Payroll Errors: Automated Time and Attendance tracking, integrated with scheduling/rostering, ensures accurate payroll processing. This reduces errors that can lead to costly discrepancies, employee dissatisfaction, and legal issues.
Improved Productivity and Quality
Your managers can gain instant visibility into workforce activity through Real-time Monitoring data.
This empowers them to make faster, more informed decisions based on facts, leading to improved productivity and operational control.
This also helps in spotting trends and issues and planning for the future by:
- Focusing on Strategic Tasks: By freeing managers from mundane administrative tasks, they can dedicate more time to strategic initiatives, team leadership, and ensuring production quality. Employees, knowing their time is accurately tracked, are also more likely to be productive.
- Eliminating Paper-Based Processes: Our system eliminates the inefficiencies and errors associated with manual schedules and spreadsheets, contributing to a more accurate and efficient workflow.
Enhanced Employee Engagement and Satisfaction (Self-Service)
Our intuitive Employee Self-Service (ESS) Mobile App gives employees direct control over their work lives.
They can view work schedules in advance, request various types of leave, check their flexitime and leave balances, and even state shift preferences or swap shifts (if permitted).
Other benefits include:
- Improved Work-Life Balance: Flexibility and transparency significantly contributes to a better work-life balance, reducing stress and burnout, and increasing job satisfaction. An engaged and satisfied workforce is more productive, loyal, and likely to remain with your company, helping you attract and retain top talent.
- Seamless Communication: The ESS platform facilitates clear communication between employees and managers regarding schedules and requests, improving responsiveness and reducing misunderstandings.
AI-Powered optimisation
Softworks is at the forefront of integrating AI into HR software.
Our AI-powered Absence Predictor analyses historical shift patterns and absence trends to forecast likely no-shows once schedules are created.
Minimise disruptions with AI by proactively adjusting schedules, protecting production and ensuring workforce stability when things go wrong on the production line.
Manufacturing Scheduling Software for Modern Organisations
Softworks’ Manufacturing Scheduling/Rostering Software is a powerful solution for organisations seeking to:
- Maintain stringent control over their production workforce
- Optimise operational efficiency
- Ensure robust compliance
- Significantly reduce costs
- Cultivate a positive, engaged workforce.
Automate your processes and gain precise data for better, more proactive production management, and create a healthier, more productive, and more satisfied workforce.
Software with Clear Investment Returns
Softworks Manufacturing Scheduling/Rostering Software offers a clear return on your investment.
Explore how Softworks could transform your manufacturing scheduling/rostering approach, bringing about lasting positive impacts on your organisation and employees.
Book a Demo with our expert team to experience firsthand the transformative potential of our solutions.
