The Ascent WorkZone^® workforce-management system

Workforce optimization spans workforce efficiency, customer satisfaction, and worker morale.

Workforce optimization occurs when you know what work needs to be done, when you have the opportunity to decide which work gets done, when you schedule your workers to do the work efficiently, and when you empower your workers to manage their own schedules.

We often describe workforce optimization as having the right workers in the right places at the right times to meet your customer needs and expectations at the lowest possible cost. When you optimize your workforce, you use your workforce to greatest advantage.

While the description is simple, the process is not. Workforce optimization requires powerful, highly sophisticated mathematical optimization and scheduling algorithms that automatically generate and analyze millions of possible ways to connect your workforce to the work that needs to be done.

The Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system uses a combination of embedded artificial intelligence algorithms, which can consider millions of possible solutions, and optimization algorithms, which can provide mathematically optimal solutions. They work in tandem to provide the best possible solutions within given time limits. Like two independent researchers, the algorithms report progress to each other periodically, revise strategies based on each other's results, and continue working until the solution is reached.

Workforce optimization requires an intelligent, carefully engineered system that selects the most advantageous ways to connect your workforce with the work that needs to be done and creates practicable work plans.

The Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system makes workforce optimization easy because the solution is intelligent, carefully engineered, and contains the mathematical optimization and scheduling algorithms you need. Better yet, the system does the heavy lifting for you at the push of a button.

Take a look at the description of the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system online or in more comprehensive brochures that are available on request from our Sales and Marketing team.

I think you'll see why I believe the breadth and depth of the functionality in the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system surpasses that of all other workforce-management products on the market.

However, what the list of features doesn't show is that we are nimble, that we listen carefully to our customers so we develop the products they want, and that we pride ourselves on being able to meet our customers' needs quickly.

That's why I also believe it's important that you know who we are and how we work.

We are world-class technologists, system designers, and problem solvers. We bring together the best artificial intelligence, computer science, and mathematical optimization research and technology, domain resource-management expertise, and design skills to provide the functionality our customers want and need. We harden that functionality into robust solutions our customers rely on around the clock, day in and day out. Our solutions successfully manage human and physical resources in a wide range of domains, from mission-critical military deployments to schedule-critical airlines and airports to service-oriented multi-property resort casinos.

We design our products to meet our customers' needs because we believe our customers know what they want and need much better than any vendor can. This has been true since we started Ascent Technology in 1986.

Over the years, we've found that when one customer asks for an additional feature, chances are pretty good that other customers will also find the feature useful. When we implement a feature for one customer, we make it available to all our customers, typically under standard software maintenance service.

For example, when the U.S. economy recently hit a brick wall, many of our customers had to cut costs as quickly as possible. Many reduced head count because labor costs make up such large parts of their operating budgets.

One of our customers, a large resort casino, looked at the problem differently. This customer wanted to lower labor costs through wage reductions, not layoffs, because it wanted to retain valued workers it had worked hard to recruit and train. The customer asked if we could modify the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system to enable the customer to decrease work hours equitably, while complying with seniority rules and other company policies, labor agreements, and statutory regulations.

We got to work immediately. In just a few short weeks, we developed, tested, and delivered a modification that enabled our customer to reduce work hours fairly across departments, worker types, and hire types; that met lowered labor budget mandates; and that ensured our customer could continue to meet the expectations of its own customers. Our customer was able to preserve jobs and to retain valued workers.

We provided the modification to all our customers as part of our standard maintenance and support services. Now, all our customers can both increase or decrease labor hours fairly as demand increases or decreases.

You can use a spreadsheet to create a simple schedule, but a spreadsheet isn't a scheduling system. It is, essentially, a manual display process prone to data-entry errors that relies on the intelligence and memory of the person using it.

If your organization has more than 100 or so workers, or operates around the clock, or operates from multiple locations, or has a variety of shift start and end times, using a spreadsheet to schedule your workers probably costs your organization a lot of money.

An intelligent, automated workforce-optimization system, like the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system, replaces wasteful, expensive manual schedules with efficient, labor-saving schedules; saves a lot of management and administrative time; and leads to happier workers and customers.

A few years ago, I toured the galley on a cruise ship. When I entered the galley, I passed the executive chef's office, which was a small interior space with large windows so the chef could watch everything going on in the galley while seated at his desk.

The chef was busy working on a laptop, apparently with great concentration as he didn't look up when I walked by. Being the curious sort, I peered through a window to see what he was working on. Was he composing the evening's menu? Was he dreaming up new recipes? No. The chef was using Microsoft Excel to create a spreadsheet that contained a weekly work schedule.

The work schedule had days of the week across the top and dozens of worker names in a column down the left side. There were shift start and end times in the rows under each day of the week. As I watched, the chef selected each worker's name in the first column and erased it. One by one, he erased all the workers from the schedule. Then, after consulting some handwritten notes on paper, he entered a new worker's name into each row in the column, to create the new schedule.

After my tour finished, I joined the tail end of next tour. Sure enough, as I passed by the chef's office again—nearly an hour later—the chef was still working on the weekly schedule.

I was surprised that anyone would attempt to use a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel to schedule so many workers. And, I was amazed to see an executive chef spending valuable time creating a schedule manually, rather than dreaming up tasty new ways to delight hungry guests.

What did using the wrong tool to schedule galley workers cost the cruise line?

It probably did not cost much in terms of labor because the executive chef was salaried: perhaps four hours of the chef's time each week to enter the names of the workers into a table and to adjust the schedule when workers are too sick to work, join the ship, or leave the ship.

It probably cost a lot in terms of lost opportunities to control costs and increase revenue: spending four hours to create a weekly work schedule means that for more than 200 hours/year the chef is not managing the galley workers, controlling food costs, developing new menus, and making sure food served to guests is prepared properly. Well-prepared food increases revenue from the sales of alcohol and extra-charge menu items, increases tip income for servers, and encourages passengers to return for additional cruises. Poorly-prepared food decreases revenue from alcohol and extra-charge menu items, and it decreases tip income for servers, which creates problems with worker morale and retention. It discourages passengers from taking another cruise on the ship and from recommending the ship to friends.

The chef probably prepared his weekly schedule based on a schedule that seemed to work all right in the past. But, because Microsoft Excel does not store and analyze historical data like the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system does, the chef could not know if his model schedule is the most efficient schedule he could use. Because Microsoft Excel is not a workforce-optimization tool like the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system is, the chef could not calculate the optimal number of galley workers or the optimal start and end times of shifts, analyze and forecast labor-utilization rates, or determine the benefits of using dual-rate workers or shared workers from other departments based on the number of passengers on board. Because Microsoft Excel is not an intelligent workforce-management system like the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system is, the chef could not create work schedules automatically and could not adjust work schedules to reflect actual conditions at the push of a button.

If every department on board the ship used its own makeshift scheduling system, rather than the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system, the cruise line could be wasting more than 200 hours/year of management time in each department on manual schedule preparation. Assuming the cruise line manages 12 departments (and the rest are outsourced), more than 2,400 hours/year of management time could be wasted producing inefficent schedules.

But it doesn't end there. Managers at the cruise line's headquarters would not have accurate and timely information about labor utilization for each department, or for each ship, or for all ships the cruise line operates. They would not have a central data repository to use for reporting and analysis, for measuring performance, and for developing goals to enhance future performance company-wide.

The cost of using the wrong tool for the job snowballs quickly.

There are many reasons why you should use the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system to optimize your workforce. Here are some important ones.

You will lower your labor costs.

You will lower your cost to manage workers, create schedules, and administer schedule changes.

You will improve your customers' satisfaction by ensuring that your workers' efforts are wrapped around your customers' needs and expectations.

You will improve worker morale, productivity, and retention by enabling your workers to have more control of their work lives.

You will uncover hidden revenue opportunities as you improve worker and facility utilization.

You will have a rich central repository of data that can be used for reporting and analysis, for measuring performance, and for developing goals for future performance at all levels of your organization---group, department, company, and corporate wide.

You don't need hundreds or thousands of workers to benefit from the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system. But, you do need to have a workforce-scheduling problem.

Many smaller organizations do not have a workforce-scheduling problem. Workers work the same hours each day and the same days each week from a single location. Both workload and customer demand are fairly constant. If your organization usually manages just fine using pencil and paper or a schedule drawn on a whiteboard, it is unlikely that using a product like the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system would be cost effective for you.

Typically, the organizations that reap the greatest benefits from the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system experience fluctuating customer demand and workloads that vary by time of day, day of week, and season of the year. Typically, the organizations have more than 100 workers. Most operate around the clock. Many operate from more than one location. All have a workforce-scheduling problem or complex operational environment that cannot be captured with pencil and paper or in a schedule drawn on a whiteboard.

I suggest that you discuss your organization's needs with a member of our Sales and Marketing team, who can provide additional information that can help you to determine if the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system is right solution for your organization.

A lot less than it saves.

Your capital cost is zero because we provide the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system by subscription.

To learn more about the options, speak with Windler L. Schweer, our Vice President of Sales and Marketing. He's really quite creative.

The amount of installation time depends on the product modules you select and the amount of integration you want.

The Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system is web-enabled. You can deploy it quickly to planners, managers, and workers throughout your organization via a standard web browser.

If you are in a hurry, we can install a simple, free-standing version of the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system for you in our hosting center. This will enable you to plan optimal schedules quickly, so that you can begin to see labor cost reductions within a month or so. We can install the remaining modules soon after, if you have no special requirements.

Most of our customers prefer to integrate the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system with one or more of their existing human resources, accounting, payroll, compliance, and time and attendance systems. We provide a connectivity-specification document to guide your IT staff or a third party of your choice with the integration work. Alternatively, we can develop the connectivity software for you. We recommend that you set aside six weeks to develop and test each feed you need. You can, of course, develop more than one feed during the same six-week period.

When the systems are integrated, information flows between them without manual re-entry, which saves considerable time and prevents costly re-keying errors. Data are readily available for reporting and analysis and for measuring performance, so you can forecast headcount and skills requirements based on actual historical information.

During installation, our knowledge engineers work with you to identify your business rules and to enter them into the system. The size of your organization determines the amount of time needed for knowledge engineering. For example, for smaller organizations, knowledge engineering takes only a week or two. Then, it usually takes a few more weeks to test and fine tune the system to ensure it operates the way you want it to.

The size of your organization also determines the amount of time needed for training. For smaller organizations, training usually takes a week or two. We can train your staff, or we can train your trainers, who will then train your staff.

The Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system handles time and attendance data collection, reporting, and management.

You can integrate your existing time and attendance system with the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system, or you can use the intelligent time and attendance module embedded in the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system. In either case, the system supports real-time feeds and batch transfers.

If your existing time and attendance system is an older system, we often recommend you use the Ascent Technology time and attendance module, which provides exceptional flexibility and relies on the knowledge embedded in the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system. For example, because our system knows when and where each worker is assigned to work, it can prevent workers from clocking in too early or too late and it can issue an alert or refuse to accept a clock-in from a worker who is at the wrong location.

The information collected by our time and attendance module drives graphical displays within the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system that enable you to see worker status, such as which workers are early, late, or missing, in real time. You can also view the information on tablets and other hand-held devices.

To learn more about options we offer for time and attendance data collection, reporting, and management, I suggest you get in touch with a member of our Sales and Marketing team.

The same people who plan, create, and manage your schedules now are the people who will use the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system. The Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system automates the schedule planning and management process, typically saving your planners, managers, administrators, and supervisors quite a bit of time.

For example, the system stores all information in a single secure database, from which information is readily available to all modules in the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system and to external systems connected to the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system. Your planners, managers, administrators, and supervisors enter information once, and the information is almost instantly available throughout your organization, decreasing information-entry time and eliminating re-keying errors.

The Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system creates optimal schedules automatically, enabling your planners to produce the best schedules to fit your organizations needs quickly.

The Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system can automatically assign and reassign workers and work in response to actual conditions, such as absent or missing workers, broken equipment, schedule changes, higher or lower than predicted demand for services, and other unanticipated events. The system automatically identifies which workers should be offered early outs or additional hours and sends appropriate SMS text message and email notifications.

In addition, the system automates many actions that involve both administrators and workers, such as making and approving work trade requests and leave requests and managing and participating in work schedule and vacation bids, which frees up administrators and workers for more productive work.

The system stores the information you enter in a secure enterprise-wide database. The information is then readily available to all modules in the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system and to external systems connected to the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system.

You never need to enter information more than once. You never waste time re-entering information, and you never make costly re-keying errors.

The Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system handles 24x7 operations with extremely high reliability and availability. Since our founding 1986, we've specialized in developing solutions for 24x7 mission-critical environments.

Workforce optimization spans workforce efficiency, customer satisfaction, and worker morale. It occurs when you know what work needs to be done, when you have the opportunity to decide which work gets done, when you schedule your workers to do the work efficiently, and when you empower your workers to manage their own schedules.

Workforce optimization is having the right workers in the right places at the right times to meet your customer needs and expectations at the lowest possible cost. When you optimize your workforce, you use your workforce to greatest advantage.

While the description may be simple, the computations are complicated. Workforce optimization requires powerful, highly sophisticated mathematical optimization and scheduling algorithms that automatically generate and analyze millions of possible ways to connect your workforce with the work that needs to be done. Workforce optimization also requires an intelligent, carefully engineered system that selects the most advantageous ways to connect your workforce with the work that needs to be done and creates practicable work plans.

The Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system makes workforce optimization easy because it is intelligent, carefully engineered, and contains the mathematical optimization and scheduling algorithms you need. Better yet, the system does the heavy lifting for you at the push of a button.

The graphical interface is modern, clean, and intuitive; each screen takes you from one step to the next quickly and without confusion. If you forget how to do something, you can display brief advice right on the screen. You can also display a tutorial with detailed explanations and step-by-step instructions in a moveable pop-up window superimposed on the screen; you can view the screen you are working on as you follow the tutorial. When you ask the Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system to do something it cannot do or if you do not give it all the information it needs, the system tells you what you need to do to recover from or avoid the problem. Intelligent wizards guide you through more complicated actions, such as entering reference information and creating the business rules that drive the system, automatically ensuring you enter information correctly and consistently.

The Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system:

• Forecasts your workload based on business rules and event schedules that conform to the way your organization prefers to operate
• Determines the best way to meet your forecasted workload based on customizable criteria, such as expected demand, required production level, and quality of service
• Determines how many full-time, part-time, seasonal, and on-call workers you need to cover your forecasted workload, the best times for work periods to start and end, and the best work-period durations
• Determines how many workers of each worker type and hire type you need for each work period
• Creates work plans that cover your forecasted workload at the lowest cost
• Identifies the best ways to achieve service goals
• Calculates and compares the costs of what-if scenarios
• Revises near-term plans based on changes to forecasted demand and event schedules
• Adjusts active work schedules in response to actual conditions in real time
• Deploys workers to locations and tasks in real time
• Follows your organization's policies and guidelines consistently
• Complies with labor-agreement requirements and statutory regulations
• Interfaces with payroll, human resources, time and attendance, accounting, compliance, and other external systems
• Provides valuable plan and active schedule information, cost comparisons, and analyses using displays, charts, and plots
• Produces comprehensive web-accessible management reports.

The Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system:

• Plans and schedules work assignments and locations following your business rules, labor agreements, and statutory and compliance regulations
• Creates general, relief, and leapfrog work-schedule bids and vacation-period bids
• Manages bid-and-award processes for work schedules and vacation periods
• Awards work schedules and vacations to workers automatically or through an equitable worker-centric bid-and-award process
• Manages vacation and other leave
• Ensures work coverage
• Identifies worker shortfalls and overages automatically
• Suggests work reassignments and early-outs to handle worker shortfalls and overages
• Tracks worker qualifications and qualification expiration dates
• Matches worker qualifications with the work to be done
• Handles multiple-rate, cross-department, and shared workers
• Assigns and reassigns tasks, locations, break times, and meal times to workers in real time in response to actual conditions, such as fluctuating workloads, unanticipated workloads, and unexpected worker absences
• Enables supervisors to adjust assignments, work-period types, locations, breaks, overtime, leave, and days off in active schedules to handle actual conditions
• Optimizes task assignments in real time
• Reduces unproductive travel time between work assignments by modelling travel times, routes, and modes of transportation between locations
• Considers travel time between locations when making assignments
• Rotates tip-reliant workers to provide equitable earning opportunities
• Handles leave, overtime, compensatory time, relief, restricted duty, on-the-job training, and similar assignments
• Updates, tracks, and stores worker information, such as worker type, hire type, hours worked, overtime, compensatory time, and leave balances
• Identifies workers available to work additional and overtime hours
• Communicates work schedules; work assignments; work locations; opportunities for additional work, overtime, and early-out; and management messages to workers
• Enables workers to clock in, clock out, and record task completion information
• Tracks time-and-attendance, location, task, and task-completion data using PCs, monitors, touch screens, kiosks, and wireless devices
• Uses access-control devices, such as badge readers and biometric scanners, to ensure the right workers are in the right locations at the right times.

The Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system:

• Enables workers to preview and choose future work schedules and vacations
• Displays daily, weekly, and monthly work schedules, with start times, end times, availability periods, locations, tasks, and days off
• Displays periods when workers can expect to work
• Displays workers' leave balances
• Displays leave availability
• Enables workers to request time off
• Enables workers to express preferences for workdays, additional work, and additional and overtime work
• Enables workers to trade work periods with co-workers
• Displays qualifications and qualification expiration dates
• Displays work history
• Communicates work schedules; work assignments; work locations; opportunities for additional work, overtime, and early out; and management messages to workers
• Enables workers to gain access to the system at the work location and remotely.

The Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system stores all information in a secure, scalable, and robust Oracle database. You enter information into the system only once; information is then available throughout your organization for viewing, reporting, analysis, and forecasting so you can identify and align your workforce with customer demand and workers know when, where, and what work to perform. Access requires credential validation, which ensures authorized users can view the information they need and hides sensitive information from unauthorized users. Multiple user roles provide additional security.

The Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system resides in our secure, highly-available, and readily-expandable cloud-hosted infrastructure, to which you gain access using a standard web browser directly from your network.

The Ascent WorkZone workforce-management system is modular and flexible. You can start with one product and add other products if and when you need them. You can start with a free-standing system and connect it to your payroll, human resources, time and attendance, accounting, and other systems later. Or, you can install the complete, fully integrated solution all at once.

In any case, Ascent Technology provides comprehensive support services to implement the solution quickly and to maintain it over time. Our goal is to provide the right solution for you—one that you will use confidently and productively round the clock, day in and day out. We are passionate about helping you to optimize your resources, and we are dedicated to ensuring your success.