Best-in-Class Workforce Management Software from Industry Experts
Header

The term “Lean” is well known in manufacturing circles and has been adopted across various disciplines including; Lean Healthcare and Lean Accounting to name a couple. A brief description of lean principles in Wikipedia states in part;

“Lean manufacturing or lean production, often simply “lean”, is a systematic method for the elimination of waste (“Muda”) within a manufacturing system. Lean also takes into account waste created through overburden (“Muri”) and waste created through unevenness in work loads (“Mura”). Working from the perspective of the client who consumes a product or service, “value” is any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for.

Essentially, lean is centered on making obvious what adds value by reducing everything else. Lean manufacturing is a management philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS) (hence the term Toyotism is also prevalent) and identified as “lean” only in the 1990s. TPS is renowned for its focus on reduction of the original Toyota seven wastes to improve overall customer value, but there are varying perspectives on how this is best achieved. The steady growth of Toyota, from a small company to the world’s largest automaker, has focused attention on how it has achieved this success.”

Ye Shall Practice Lean Manufacturing

Today, several organizations have formal Continuous Improvement methods that leverage the “lean” process –but may leave others to chance or perhaps feel it’s not as important. ATS Cloud Workforce Management for Manufacturing was developed with lean thinking from its original inception and as such has many built-in capabilities to support your lean initiatives. “You can’t improve what you don’t track or measure.” This in and of itself is one of the tenets that have shaped the ATS Workforce Management for Manufacturing with a robust database, embedded with sophisticated user dashboards, and business analytics.

For example, users can extrapolate reports in real-time to measure payroll costs, through a set of forecasting tool and workflows–and compare key performance indicators (KPIs) against goals to clearly measure on-going improvements. Now, that’s taking the holistic approach to “Lean Manufacturing.”

To learn more about ATS Cloud Workforce Management for Lean Manufacturing go to our website and download a demonstration. And to reach us by phone, call: 866.294.2467.

Ye Shall Practice Lean Manufacturing

Using An Effective Scheduling Solution Will Improve Employee Engagement

April 26th, 2016 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Employee Scheduling | Forecasting | Hospitality Industry | Labour cost | Overtime | Retail | Scheduling | Workforce Analytics | Workforce Scheduling Software - (Comments Off on Using An Effective Scheduling Solution Will Improve Employee Engagement)

The latest brouhaha over employees being scheduled for on-call shifts hit a crescendo, a few days ago, revealing a practice that is frowned upon my many workers, many of whom, have cited the effects these on-call shifts are having on workers ability to plan activities outside of work. It’s possible that some of these companies are using a variety of spreadsheets and other manual methods to schedule employees.

If your organization is using an outdated scheduling system, chances are, you could be wasting valuable time and money. ATS Workforce Scheduling system is powerful and robust software that provides broad-based capabilities to help companies better manage their business and their labour force. The ATS Workforce Employee Scheduling targets small, mid-size and large-scale operations in retail, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing and services.

Using An Effective Scheduling Solution Will Improve Employee Engagement

ATS Workforce Scheduler Includes:

Budgeting and Forecasting
ATS budgeting and forecasting module features an independent, definable structure that supports the creation, editing and reporting of business volume and workforce forecasts. With a wide variety of options for defining productivity tasks, standards, drivers and parameters, ATS Budgeting and Forecasting tool provides unprecedented detail and accuracy of workforce requirements.

Eradication of Scheduling Conflicts
ATS Workforce Scheduler allows managers to see details of how a team of workers is scheduled through the day, coupled by the use of an advanced heuristic algorithm that enables companies to meet forecast needs by developing an optimized schedule of employee work assignments. ATS Workforce Scheduler has the distinction of being able to build individual employee shift and job preferences into weekly work schedules. ATS Workforce Scheduler provides real-time employee availability, thus, allowing managers to immediately correct any necessary conflicts, due to overlapping shifts, and overtime. With this unique feature, the software will reduce workforce turnover and increase employee satisfaction.

Ability to Schedule Employees in Real-Time
ATS Workforce Scheduler provides updates in real-time. For example, once a manager has completed their staff schedulers they can send it to their employees through mass updates. Employees, in turn, can view their schedules online from any device that’s connected to the Internet.

Easy to Use Tools
Get the peace of mind you deserve by making sure you have the right people scheduled at the right time and place. With ATS Workforce Scheduler, you can schedule employees by department, shift, or multiple sites. ATS Workforce Scheduler automatically calculates the number of hours each employee is scheduled to work and compares it to the number of hours they wish to work each week.

Reporting Capabilities
ATS Workforce Scheduler creates intuitive analytics that are based on your business and workforce requirements, relevant work and shift rules, and individual employee information.

In conclusion, with a growing number of regional, state and provincial governments clamping down on on-calls shifts, manual spreadsheets will not help your organization. What you need is a robust solution that will reduce time spent on scheduling, save costs, increase productivity and employee engagement.

To see a demonstration of ATS Workforce Scheduling Solution, go to our website. You can also join the conversation on: LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ or Pinterest.

 

Give The People What They Want, Not Stress By Too Much Paperwork

February 17th, 2015 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | TimeWork | Workforce Analytics | Workforce Scheduling Software - (Comments Off on Give The People What They Want, Not Stress By Too Much Paperwork)

It’s fair to say most businesses have the same objective: remain profitable, efficient, and streamline operational cost. Depending on corporate culture and organizational priorities these goals may differ in order slightly. Regardless of the order in which these priorities rank, ATS time and attendance advanced technology ensures that employee data is captured in real-time with accuracy, efficiency, and effectiveness.

So an executive, if your company’s Payroll, HR Department, Plant Manager and Financial Controller are complaining about the amount of time, effort and paperwork involved in getting you accurate information-consider the following if you automate:

Comprehensive data capture: With an array of employee time clocks to choose from, you can say good-bye to those manual pesky timesheets that cost your company thousands of dollars each year in human error.

Powerful analytics:  Just imagine no longer have to guess the correct number of employees needed to cover a shift, or the best worker to fill an open one? With ATS forecasting and workforce analytics tool, you can now remove the guessing out of the equation. Instead, you will now have at your fingertips, real-time data, for actionable insights.

Seamless integration: That means no more keying data into excel spreadsheets, ERP, payroll and HR systems. With ATS time and attendance you can now connect quickly to other applications.

Deployment to success: ATS professional service team will help you plan and manage your ATS TimeWork time and attendance deployment and will we will strive to help you understand all of the support options and tools that are available. We will also continue to provide needed services throughout the life of your relationship with ATS.

Innovative solution: Cloud-delivered ATS TimeWork Time and Attendance provides yearly enhancements at no additional cost or disruption.

So how do you automate your current manual process or changed from the current system that’s not meeting your needs? That’s easy, we can help you launch that strategy – and help ensure that you reap the benefits, of a workforce management solution, quickly and cost-effectively.

To learn more, download a demonstration or, if you prefer, one of our account executives can contact you by phone.

Give The People What They Want, Not Stress By Too Much Paperwork

If The World Of Sales Has Changed, Why Are Sales Managers Repeating The Same Old Steps?

February 5th, 2015 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Time and Attendance On-Demand | Workforce Analytics | Workforce Management Solutions - (Comments Off on If The World Of Sales Has Changed, Why Are Sales Managers Repeating The Same Old Steps?)

The answer to this question is very simple. Some sales managers are not engaged in the field and so, they lack the basic knowledge to understand that selling in today’s highly competitive market-place is different to what they knew, when they were sales reps themselves.

Take for instance; sales managers still requiring their reps to make 90 or more cold calls per day? Most decision makers do not answer their phones and when they do, it’s to speak to someone that they know as oppose to accepting a call from a stranger who’s calling to pitch their wares. Another activity that’s common with many sales managers is a sales forecast, based on the amount of phone calls, meetings and presentations. Forecasting sales goals is a necessary process and, we would further argue that it’s extremely important for every company-since the life blood of an organization is predicated on sales. However, a sales forecast based on conjecture and guessing should not be created at all, if that’s its sole purpose. Unless the customer has committed to buying the product, adding a meeting, phone call or sales presentation to a forecast is the quickest path to the disappointment.

One of the more poignant articles titled “Stop Guesstimating Your Sales Forecast” written by Matthew Bellows for Harvard Business Review reads, in part;

“The performance of the sales team has always been the most measurable in a company. At the end of every week, month, quarter and year, the result of sales activity is shown on the top line for all to see.

There are two reasons. First, the obvious: the higher you go in the organization, the less connected you are to the deals happening beneath you — and the more vulnerable you are to individual reps or teams, either purposely or subconsciously, altering their pipeline projections to suit their needs. This is no different from how people in non-sales functions push to create budgets and targets they know they can beat.

The second reason for the sales manager’s pain is that when it comes to gathering data about upcoming sales possibilities, companies and CRM systems rarely measure anything real. For most kinds of business-to-business selling, your CRM database is an outdated collection of anecdotes and guesses. The fewer the deals, and the longer the sales cycle, the less your “data” matches reality. The stuff that does get accumulated in spreadsheets and CRM systems looks like data — there are dollar signs and probabilities next to prospect names — but it’s not. It’s really just the opinions, guesses, estimates and suppositions of your sales team.”

Change is a difficult process for human beings to accept, some more so than others and, in the case of some sales managers adapting to change, is simply not part of their DNA. A passage from an article on Forbes.com and written by Scott Gillum reads; “Research from Google and CEB titled The Digital Evolution in B2B Marketing provides new insight into buyer behavior, and it challenges the conventional wisdom. According to the study, customers reported to being nearly 60 percent through the sales process before engaging a sales rep, regardless of price point. More accurately, 57 percent of the sales process just disappeared.” Maybe it’s time for some sales leaders to rethink what goes into that sales forecast and if nothing else, understand the new way of selling and then adapt their approach.

To learn about ATS Attendance OnDemand go to our website. You can also register for one of our live webinars or join the conversation on LinkedIn or Twitter.

If The World Of Sales Has Changed, Why Are Sales Managers Repeating The Same Old Steps?

It is well documented that labour costs is one the highest expense of any company and, the companies who automate their business processes stand a better chance of obtaining financial health with their organization. When costs are inaccurate, senior management cannot make the best business decisions, and that can leave an organization in disarray. For example, when the gap between forecasting, labour costs and production is difficult to predict this leaves everyone guessing about efficiencies and true costs.

Depending on the size of the organization, manufacturers have to deal with collective bargaining agreements, comply with government agencies, and customers, and at the same time meet, challenging production schedules. To do this profitably, you have to keep labour costs low, while at the same time increase productivity.

With ATS TimeWork for job tracking and labour allocation you can:

  • Provide faster response- to customers and efficient release of work to the shop floor.
  • Automate workforce scheduling- Schedule the best available employees to meet forecasted demand.
  • Track labour costs -associated with specific jobs, departments, or production-based activities.
  • Obtain real-time information on employee attendance and job costing activities.
  • on production issues and actual costing data.
  • Remain in compliance with collective bargaining agreements (CBA) and government requirements.
  • Track employee activities- on production lines with a variety of employee time clocks and barcode scanners.
  • View real-time reports sent directly to your mobile device so you know who is working at which station, at any given time.

Controlling labour costs in a dynamic manufacturing environment is a challenge onto itself, leaving that task to chance or worse, through manual data collection can create even more headaches. ATS TimeWork is built to handle the constant changes in cost- conscious manufacturing environments. ATS TimeWork Workforce Management Software encompasses broad flexibility, scalability and user-friendly dashboards for production personnel, payroll, and finance and HR personnel.

To view a customized demonstration, go our website or call 1.866.294.2467.

ATS Time And Attendance For Manufacturing Improves Profitability

Workforce Statistics And Job Recovery, What Recovery?

September 9th, 2014 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Labour Forecasting | Payroll | Time and Attendance Blog - (Comments Off on Workforce Statistics And Job Recovery, What Recovery?)

The latest job numbers from both the US and Canada paint a gloomy picture. Some experts contend that the reported numbers show how much catching up the economy has to do after the great recession. So, is there any end in sight to these gloomy numbers? Regarding payroll, in its most recent report the US department of labor states:

“Payroll employment increases in August (+142,000); unemployment rate changes little (6.1%) Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 142,000 in August, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 6.1 percent. Job gains occurred in professional and business services and in health care.”

And on productivity, it states in part, “Productivity increased 2.3 percent in the nonfarm business sector in the second quarter of 2014; unit labor costs decreased 0.1 percent (seasonally adjusted annual rates). In manufacturing, productivity increased 3.3 percent and unit labor costs decreased 1.6 percent.”

Are these the type of numbers we can expect to see in the upcoming months or is this just an anomaly? Some experts suggest that the job reports are inaccurate, and that statisticians, are not using the right forecasting tools hence, the numbers do not equate to the true unemployment figures.

One thing’s for sure with employment at an all time high for recent graduates and many older workers, let’s all hope we do not slip back into a recession anytime soon.

 

Workforce Statistics And Job Recovery, What Recovery?

In recent years, the popularity of cloud-based software solutions has grown exponentially. But it was too long ago that some doubters viewed software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions as the brand new toy that would fade away from the collective memory of most business executives. As it turned out, the reverse happened. In fact many businesses would prefer to deploy a business management software solution in weeks not years and do not want to hassle of having their IT department maintain a Server for each software application. And in today’s very competitive business landscape who wants to maintain expensive servers when there are less expensive alternatives like a cloud-based application.

Joe McKendrick, contributor on Forbes.com said in a recent article “Benefits already seen from current cloud deployments include the simplification of internal operations (37 percent); better delivery of internal resources (33 percent); and new ways for employees to work, connect, and collaborate (31 percent). Also on the list of cloud benefits realized are faster rollout of new business initiatives to exploit new opportunities (at 23 percent) and improved ability to acquire, share, analyze, and act on data (23 percent).”

If your company happens to be one of the many, that’s struggling to collect employee hours using paper-based time sheets, there is a better and more productive way-ATS TimeWork On-Demand. Your company can tap into the rapid innovation that the ATS Time and Attendance On-Demand, enables and adapt your time collection processes quickly to evolve with the 21st century. ATS time and attendance can manage your entire workforce – business analytics, time tracking, budgeting and forecasting and workforce planning  – in the cloud and with seamless integration to, Payroll, Talent Management,  Enterprise Resources Planning, (ERP), Human Resources and Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

To learn more, download a demonstration, join a live webinar or contact one of account representatives at 866.294.2467.

Adoption Of Cloud-Based Applications Is On The Upswing

Unified Time and Attendance in the Cloud

March 19th, 2014 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Benefit Accruals | Web-Based Time and Attendance Software | Workforce Analytics - (Comments Off on Unified Time and Attendance in the Cloud)

The ever-quickening pace of change means modern businesses cannot afford to take a day off. ATS unified workforce management suite, encompasses; job costing, overtime equalization, HR benefit accruals, workforce planning, time and attendance, forecasting and budgeting and business intelligence.

ATS TimeWork On-Demand is a complete global solution with provincial, state and multi-country capabilities. ATS TimeWork On-Demand enables companies to streamline manual business processes, comply locally, and quickly adapt to organizational and legislative changes.

ATS time and attendance addresses the complexity of work-rule policies and multi-company needs of mid and large scale organizations. You can be rest assured of paying your workforce on time and according to global and local compensation rules.

You can easily handle both simple and complex payroll needs with these solution benefits within ATS TimeWork On-Demand:

Accelerate Implementation. ATS TimeWork On-Demand cab be implemented in a third to a half the time of a conventional on-premise system, which in turn, enables a company to realize a quicker return on investment.

Reduce Costs. Capital expenditures for an ATS cloud-based time and attendance solution is a fraction of those required for an application that’s installed on your Server, with lower ongoing maintenance and total cost of ownership.

Agile And Grows With Your Business. ATS TimeWork On-Demand supplies agility through real-time visibility, workforce analytics and operational metrics. The solution is configured to business needs without reliance on corporate IT, and provides the ability to scale anytime, anywhere.

Getting an accurate view of a data is at times, a challenge for growing businesses. Data is often fragmented across multiple systems and spreadsheets are time-consuming, error-prone and hard to maintain. ATS TimeWork On-Demand gives businesses the power of real-time reporting and analysis—integrated right into Payroll, ERP and HR application that managers use every day—to drive true operational insights.

 To hear what customers have to say about ATS go to our website. You can also join the live demonstration How a Cloud-Based Time and Attendance can Drive Business Growth on March 21st by registering on our website.

As the digital age continues to outpace other modes of communications and transactions, so has the amount of money and space that companies have allocated towards it. Over the last several years, businesses have begun trending towards cloud-based software solutions and away from purchasing expensive, powerful servers and computers for their host their business applications.

Thanks to developments in cloud computing, today’s businesses have come to realize that they are able to access their data much quicker and without the costly acquisition of computing equipment which was needed some 3 years ago.

ATS TimeWork On-Demand is one of the most robust and powerful time and attendance software applications available for small, mid and large scale businesses. ATS suite of workforce management software applications includes a plethora of modules that includes: workforce planning, business intelligence, employee scheduling, workforce accruals, job costing, workforce analytics, overtime equalization, forecasting and budgeting and vacation planning modules.

ATS TimeWork On-Demand workforce management gives your entire enterprise the power of ATS up-to-the-minute access-through the cloud. From collaboration to predictive modeling for employee time capture, ATS TimeWork On-Demand workforce software supports all aspects of the payroll and HR cycle.

ATS Cloud-Based Time and Attendance supports streamlined business processes and provides a host of features for accrual benefits management, efficient pay management, and a flexible and configurable framework for workforce planning.

Still need more reasons to make the switch to ATS TimeWork On-Demand? View a demonstration on our website or call us at 1.866.294.2467.

 

Antiquated systems simply do not work in today’s global workforce and evolving regulations. Let’s set aside the spreadsheets and “honour system” and engage in a conversation that helps business executives achieve goals that will keep customers, shareholders and employees happy. These goals include:

  • Deploying a time and attendance tracking solution that is adaptable, easy-to-use and will meet the demands of a diverse workforce
  • Controlling payroll costs
  • Figuring out if you have the right tools for scheduling your workforce
  • Providing employees with the flexibility to view their benefit accruals
  • How to make the best use of real-time labour analytics

These goals are  realistic. With the use of a unified workforce management solution, your organization can track employee time and attendance, reduce labour costs and stay in compliance with current regulations.

ATS TimeWork On-Demand Uses a Best-Practice Approach
ATS helps companies solve workforce management challenges with a proven implementation methodology. We provide our customers with the best possible technical support experts in our industry.

Comprehensive Enterprise Time and Attendance Software
ATS time and attendance has been designed to grow with your business needs. Our software application facilitates your unique business needs by calculating the most complex work and payroll rules. ATS provides a full enterprise software solution portfolio, that combines scalability and flexibility to meet today’s business challenges while, empowering your organization for unparalleled success.

Integrated Solution
ATS TimeWork On-Demand combines all aspects of your workforce management including: Forecasting, Workforce Scheduling, Time and Attendance, Employee Self-Service and Business Intelligence. ATS time and attendance solution maintains proven integration with leading; enterprise resource planning, payroll and HR applications thus, enabling you to truly integrate your workforce with your business.

ATS TimeWork is Flexible
We recognize that one of the most important features of great software is how easy it is for people to use. That is why ATS developed a solution that is rapid to implement, adapts to various business requirements and dramatically shortens the learning curve for users.

A Solution For The Long Term
The implementation of an ATS time and attendance system is an excellent investment for the short and long term. ATS TimeWork software solution minimizes the cost and complexity of implementation, integration and support. ATS TimeWork On-Demand can be easily deployed anywhere, on any device and delivers a low total cost of ownership (TCO) and rapid return on investment (ROI). This all translates into an improved bottom line and ultimately, that’s what makes shareholders smile.

ATS TimeWork time and attendance is a comprehensive workforce management solution that is built for the way people work today and is ready to meet the ever-changing demands of a growing, global economy.

Want to learn more? Call us at 866.294.2467 and find out how ATS TimeWork can help your business grow. To view a demonstration, go to our website.