Frequently Asked Questions

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Labor Managment

Labor Management Systems (LMS) include a series of tools that help operations managers direct their labor resources to maximize productivity and utilization while properly engaging their workforce to create a positive culture.

ProTrack Labor Management Software integrates easily with your WMS and Time and Attendance systems to capture real-time operational and performance data reducing overtime, turn-over and increasing productivity by 10 to 20%.

While a WMS focuses primarily on the movement of material, most do not have advanced real-time performance management, labor planning/forecasting or formal coaching capabilities. A tier one labor management system will provide managers the tools needed to manage and improve performance in real-time seamlessly.

ProTrack gives managers the tools needed to properly labor plan and track, in real-time, progress of the team in order to make timely adjustments throughout the day. Additionally, ProTrack will provide all necessary alerting needed to provide each of your supervisors with the daily roadmap to high performance and employee engagement.

You don’t. There are several forms of standards that can be used with your labor management system including “historical standards”, “engineered reasonable expectancies” and fully “discrete engineered standards”. Each of these approaches provide you with varying levels of investment and savings potential. TZA can specifically analyze your operation and provide you with the ROI options best for your organization.

ProTrack can utilize current or adjusted historical data to determine volume levels, converted to actual work content, and then assign the right associate to the right job based on user defined “resource assignment” configurations.

Many operations use spreadsheets to manage their labor. Unfortunately, this approach takes a significant number of clerical hours and is prone to errors. Labor management systems provide seamless integration with your WMS to provide continuous data-capture and reporting allowing you to manage in real-time, not at the end of the day. Planning, coaching and having performance data at your finger tips throughout the day leads to higher levels of performance, lower cost per unit and a more engaged workforce.

Other than TZA, ProRep, Nextview, and EasyMetrics provide stand-alone labor management systems. Additionally, a few of the WMS companies like Manhattan Associates, SAP, JDA, and Highjump provide LMS as a secondary offering. Generally speaking, those organizations with their sole focus on labor management software have tier one LMS functionality. TZA is one of the few companies offering software and engineering services with over 35 years of expertise.

Tier one Labor management systems, such as ProTrack, utilize several features to assure both quality of work and attendance goals are met. First and foremost, a formal coaching module coupled with the ability to recognize and reward associates creates an engaged workforce. That culture, in turn, creates an environment of high performance, high attendance and higher quality of work.

Labor management systems provide the opportunity to fully engage the workforce through planning, coaching, real-time performance management, and data analysis resulting in cost per unit reductions of 10 to 20%, lower overtime and higher retention levels.

Implementation
It takes as little as 3 weeks to implement a labor management system when your existing standards are being used to populate the LMS. More advanced levels of standards development will add additional time to your project.
The implementation of a labor management system typically takes 5 to 10 days of an IT analyst and approximately 3 full equivalent days of training for each operations manager. Additional time is typically dependent on optional levels of added services such as the development of “lean SOPs”, standards development, leadership training, etc. if any.
Data, Technical and IT
With ProTrack, there are not technical requirements. We have interfaced with nearly every system in the market. Being a Saas technology company, we can easily integrate other data sources into our software.
Approximately 5 to 10 days depending upon how discrete your standards will be and number of host systems we will be interfacing to.
Yes. ProTrack Connect, our ETL tool, gives us the ability to tie into one or multiple systems to use in managing your operations through ProTrack. ProTrack Connect is so flexible that your team has put to make the data available to us. We do the rest.
Absolutely. LMS doesn’t require a lot of data to provide a significant change in your performance.
The vast majority of employee data is transferred seamlessly from your WMS to the LMS as it is being captured through the utilization of your RF guns, voice system or terminal interaction. In the case where you have employees who do not utilize any of these data collection devices, most tier one LMs’ provide a kiosk to capture data.
ROI
Performance improvements are visible within the first week or two of your LMS being utilized. These improvements come in the form of identifying under-utilized resources, resources in need of immediate coaching, lack of planning, to much time being spend in indirect and delay activities, etc.
As productivity improves there is the opportunity to reduce cost. Actual cost per unit is reduced by either doing the same volume with fewer hours or doing more volume with the same hours. In either scenario, LMS will help you navigate your true resource needs based on your current state of performance and expected volume.
A tier one LMS has sophisticated Business Intelligence reporting built in and as such you will have all the information needed to project an accurate labor budget. This information includes but is not limited to: actual and projected productivity and cost data by functional area, average overtime per person, actual utilization rates, temporary worker productivity, historical volume swings, etc.
Employees
Tier one LMS’ have formal coaching, recognition and reward modules designed to assist the department supervisor to regularly engage with their assigned employees.
LMS utilizes performance data at the individual employee level to determine which employees are in need of coaching.
Temporary employees are typically more expensive on a per unit basis than your full-time employees. As such, your LMS will help you manage performance expectations by temporary employee and coach these individuals as needed to achieve higher levels of performance. Of course, you should work with your temporary service manager to engage your temporary employees in performance conversations.
Business Type and Size

Today’s LMS’ are designed to manage the most complex environments in the supply chain.

No. Though small operations operate a little differently than large operations, every manager has the task of managing their resources. Did you know that most LMS’ payback periods are less than six months? That includes the smaller operations as well.

No, TZA actually has three products including ProTrack Manufacturing, ProTrack Warehouse and ProTrack Drivers. Each of these products has specific functionality to support components of your supply chain.

Pay for Performance
Labor management systems can calculate and manage incentive pay or non-monetary rewards associated with performing at or above a standard level of performance expectation. Quality and other thresholds are managed in conjunction with productivity levels. If done correctly, incentives programs are self-funding plans designed to enhance employee pay and recognition.