Cutting Labor Costs

From Workforce Level Planning to Job Bidding

Amongst pressures faced by manufacturing operations today, matching the size of one’s workforce to their projected production requirements is a growing challenge. Tugboat’s new job bidding tools include a labor planning interface that manages the desired number of jobs for each department and shift. Users can develop a list of minimum jobs required during both… Read more »

Implementation – Early Payback

Even if an application appears to really meet one’s needs, there is always the challenge of implementation. A financial manager for Coca-Cola recently asked, “This application looks like it will do the job but answer this: how much trouble will we uncover when it comes to implementation?” He was specifically referring to the resistance that… Read more »

Extra Man? Right or Wrong

In large manufacturing facilities, it’s not hard to find managers who’ll acknowledge, on any given day, there may be extra workers on the floor. Sometimes referred to as redundant manning this sounds like an easy target when looking for labor waste. But is it? Yes and no. Here’s the difference. Under certain circumstances having an… Read more »

Labor Waste – Over Use Of Temporary Workers

We recently completed work with a customer where we were able to reduce their overall cost of labor and measure the results as well. The goal was to reduce the use of temporary workers (Temps). Temps are an ideal resource when balancing the ups-&-downs of production demand with a finite labor capacity. Using Temps is… Read more »