Unraveling Multimodality with Large Language Models.pdf
Sum t wp_workforce_expense_management_lean
1. Whitepaper
Workforce & Expense
Management Supports Lean
Manufacturing Initiatives
Applying Lean Manufacturing Initiatives
to Workforce & Expense Management
Today’s successful manufacturing organizations need to be agile and alert. Finding
creative and efficient ways to control costs and meet budget requirements
means process improvements that address changing business needs while being There are
responsive to market fluctuations. For manufacturers with large, diverse workforces, significant business
better management of employee related costs is often the single most impactful way advantages and
to support the principles of Lean Manufacturing and create lasting value for customers. savings inherent
in having the
Executive Summary right people with
To meet the challenges of doing more with fewer resources while remaining the right skills
competitive and increasing efficiencies, many manufacturing organizations have available at the
embarked on Lean Manufacturing Initiatives that focus on eliminating all waste right time & at the
in the manufacturing process. During the normal course of business, even the best possible cost.
most disciplined manufacturing firms find themselves with an overproduction of
goods leading to unnecessary and costly inventory, a mismatch of demand with
output levels and inefficiencies related to both the manufacturing and distribution
processes. These lean manufacturing initiatives and strategies can also be
effectively applied toward a manufacturer’s largest controllable expense - its
workforce. All too often, companies do not fully recognize or utilize the skills and
capabilities of their own employees. There are significant business advantages
and savings inherent in having the right people with the right skills available at
the right time and at the best possible cost.
World-class manufacturers share a core focus on innovation, responsiveness,
quality and cost effectively meeting demand. Often utilizing ‘best-of-breed’
specialty solutions, these firms leverage technology for maximum efficiency and
contain costs through a manufacturing process and supply chain network that
ultimately serves to enhance business performance. Empowering the workforce
adds strategic value by streamlining supply chain, manufacturing and customer-
centric processes to meet and exceed increasing customer expectations. People
are critical to driving business performance and workforce optimization is a key
element in maintaining competitive differentiation.
Automated enterprise-class workforce and expense management solutions help
manufacturers reduce payroll preparation time, improve payroll accuracy by 1-5% of
gross payroll1 and optimize organizational performance, productivity and profitability.
Robust workforce and expense management solution components consisting of time
and attendance, business expense management and employee scheduling and
optimization solutions, that are 100% Web-based, fully integrated and scalable, help
manufacturing organizations meet ongoing business challenges by:
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2. Workforce & Expense Management Supports
Lean Manufacturing Initiatives
■ Better management of a diverse and distributed workforce
■ Generating tighter overtime control with reduced payroll
inaccuracies
■ Driving productivity gains through effective and efficient
employee scheduling
■ Supporting systems integration to ERP, work order and
payroll
■ Addressing pay, work, accrual & union rules while complying
with regulatory requirements
■ Ensuring compliance with FMLA, FLSA and Sarbanes-
Oxley
■ Increasing efficiency while modernizing workforce and
expense management processes to meet the needs of a
diverse end-user community
This paper examines lean manufacturing workforce management initiatives, the
opportunities and benefits they provide and the enterprise applications available
to manage and support them.
Take Control Where It Matters Most
Effectively controlling costs and efficiently deploying a large diverse workforce
depends on an organization’s ability to properly schedule staff, control and track
time and attendance, eliminate payroll inaccuracies and integrate with existing Organizations that
business applications. Organizations that have implemented lean manufacturing have implemented
initiatives realize the value of workforce and expense automation processes in lean manufacturing
several vital areas of their operations. initiatives realize the
1. Reducing Operating Expenses by Controlling Labor value of workforce &
and Expense Costs expense automation
processes in several
Labor and expense costs make up the largest part of a manufacturer’s cost of vital areas of their
goods sold. To remain competitive, firms need to control and reduce costs to a operations.
manageable level that does not negatively impact product quality. To achieve
better cost control, manufacturers with integrated and automated workforce and
expense management systems are able to:
■ Track labor costs in a variety of configurations including
across locations, cost centers, positions, multiple work
orders, departments and business units
■ Staff to business needs to minimize or eliminate potential
overstaffing and coverage gaps
■ Address rate progressions, position step-ups/downs,
departmental cross charging of labor
■ Manage highly accurate Activity Based Costing (ABC) to
know the real labor costs in process
■ Automate the entire expense reporting cycle from report
creation and workflow approval through audit and
reimbursement
■ Automate union contract compliance
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3. Workforce & Expense Management Supports
Lean Manufacturing Initiatives
2. Improving Accountability and Compliance
The regulatory environment continues to pose demands and challenges on
businesses that did not exist even five years ago. Compliance with external and
internal regulations has become critical for a firm’s survival. The documentation
and recordkeeping requirements of this increased level of regulation need to be
managed as closely as the production process. Manufacturers can best meet
regulatory demands through automation of the following:
■ Standardize and automate workforce management pro-
cesses across each plant or location
■ Support union contracts and complex business processes
with workflow capabilities to manage pay, work and union
rules, scheduling, and accruals
■ Support best-in-class corporate quality initiatives by mea-
suring time, attendance and scheduling performance while
reducing payroll inaccuracies and standardizing scheduling
across business units
■ Achieve greater control over costs, improved compliance
and increased visibility into operations through employee
business travel expense data capture, reporting, validation
and documentation
3. Increase the Accuracy and Agility of Production Scheduling
Making plant operations more flexible and responsive through lean initiatives is a
fundamental priority. For global companies, it is also crucial to apply lean thinking
to the broader, global supply chain that includes the workforce. Responsiveness
to demand fluctuations and market opportunities by having the right products Manufacturers
available at the height of market demand has always been the desired outcome can best meet
of production scheduling. Manual or semi-automated workforce systems do production
not offer the real-time responsiveness needed and can cause lost sales and requirements and
revenues. Manufacturers can best meet production requirements and market market demands
demands through fully automated systems to: through fully
automated systems
■ Streamline operations through automated scheduling
■ Meet production demands while balancing cost control
and efficiency
■ Deploy the right mix of people on fixed or rotating
schedules to move orders out the door while responding
to demand fluctuations
■ Focus on leveraging real-time information for better
management decisions
■ Improve employee satisfaction with schedules aligned
with employees’ work/life preferences
■ Control scheduling variations with ‘best practice’
templates that reflect the most efficient staffing models
■ Find the right substitute at the best cost when managing
unexpected absences
■ Provide support for overtime equalization by assigning
the lowest cost resource when scheduling overtime
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4. Workforce & Expense Management Supports
Lean Manufacturing Initiatives
Manufacturing Organizations Maximize Service and Productivity
Any system that requires extensive training or that takes too long to deploy is
not a ‘best practice’ solution. Successful Workforce and Expense Management
solutions should maximize the potential benefits by fostering rapid adoption
through ease-of-use along with offering a positive user experience. In addition,
rapid initial return on investment (ROI), along with lifecycle maximization of
ROI, are key factors to look for when selecting automated workforce and
expense management systems. System providers need to know a firm’s goals
and expectations so they can support the business and develop the most cost
effective implementation plan to take full advantage of the technology, minimize
TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) and exceed business objectives.
Enterprise-class solutions give manufacturers the power to accurately manage
schedules and time and attendance for all employees and contingent workers. Doing
so means businesses can adhere to lean manufacturing goals by effectively
staffing peak periods and addressing special scheduling situations to ensure
improved customer satisfaction and increased operational efficiency. In addition,
solutions for complex, mid- to large tier manufacturers need to streamline operations,
increase responsiveness and agility and reduce payroll costs. Automated Workforce
and Expense Management solutions will help to improve business performance
and productivity – whether the organization is regional, national or global - while
dramatically building employee productivity and satisfaction.
Business Expenses: Making the Second Largest Controllable
Expenditure a Top Priority
After labor costs, employee business expenses are regarded as the second
largest controllable expense. Expense Management Automation (EMA) solutions
EMAs are
are increasingly recognized as critical components in controlling costs and
increasingly
aligning regulatory requirements with company expense policies and improving
recognized as critical
bottom line performance. Employee expenses are no longer limited to travel and
components in
entertainment costs paid by the employee and reimbursed by the company, but
controlling costs &
also include expenses and payment options from the entire range of employee aligning regulatory
discretionary expenses including office supplies, mobile phones, meetings, MRO, requirements with
p-cards, corporate payment cards, fleet cards, direct vendor billing and more. company expense
Add to the mix a growing number of mobile workers, rising costs of travel, tighter policies & improving
government regulations and uncertain economic conditions. As a result, companies bottom line
have come to realize that enterprise-wide technology solutions are no longer luxuries performance.
but necessities. Optimization of administrative and back office processes associated
with employee expenses has taken on a new urgency as firms realize the need to
better manage and control escalating employee business costs. Visionary companies
rely on highly acceptable, user-friendly, intuitive, best-of-breed technology solutions
that deliver bottom line results along with a rapid return on investment (ROI).
Expense Management Automation solutions gives manufacturers the power to
attack the high cost of expense processing at its source: the employee’s “point of
spend.” These solutions allow automation of the entire expense reporting cycle
from pre-trip authorization, expense report prepopulation, and workflow approval
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5. Workforce & Expense Management Supports
Lean Manufacturing Initiatives
and report creation through to travel booking integration, audit, reimbursement,
receipts management and post-payment reporting and analysis. EMA solutions
handle every aspect of employee business expense processing and increases
efficiencies when integrated with existing back end General Ledger systems.
The Business Challenges of Mobility
Often spending more time outside the plant or office than within, business travelers,
especially sales representatives, technicians, managers and field employees,
constitute the mobile workforce. Manufacturing firms today are facing increased
requirements and challenges to enable and empower their expanding mobile
and/or ‘untethered’ workforces that are not connected to the company network
during the course of the work day. These challenges go beyond delivering
Internet or email access to mobile workers; there’s a need to provide select,
critical business applications to this user community in a consistent, secure and
robust deployment. The goal of these efforts is to bring the enterprise applications
to these mobile workers wherever they are rather than forcing the mobile workers
to the enterprise applications.
Mobile and remote workers have the same pressures as on-site employees to
comply with existing corporate policies, approvals and business processes. These
employees need to have secure access to enterprise-class applications in real-time
to help them perform productively and effectively, while adhering to corporate policies
and standards. Whether it is a day trip for a regional plant manager or an employee
working on an oil rig, best-in-class solutions offer support for time capture, employee
self-service, labor distribution, expense reporting and management approvals to
address the needs of the growing mobile workforce.
Match Labor Supply with Business Demands
Without a system in place, the tasks of staffing, managing absence replacements
and responding to fluctuating business demands are laborious and can be quite
inefficient. Visibility into resource availability is limited and without a dashboard
(KPIs) that
view of the current, available workforce, businesses may not know if they’re provide real-time
paying for unnecessary overtime or scheduling employees to work hours beyond visibility into the
what is considered safe or within contractual guidelines. status of cost
With an automated workforce management system in place, employers benefit and sales metrics
from the ability to track key performance indicators (KPIs) that provide real- allowing for the
time visibility into the status of cost and sales metrics allowing for the most most productive
productive and cost effective staffing. Enterprises can optimize schedules based and cost effective
on business demand, and as a result, realize an increase in productivity, while staffing.
enhancing operations and ensuring the right resources with the right skills are
available when and where they are needed.
Scheduling software delivers real-time information that enables manufacturing
firms to allocate staff according to employee-to-revenue ratios, or other relevant
metrics, such as placing workers in certain areas, locations or in departments to
accomplish the tasks or service that generate better bottom-line results within
budget allocations.
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6. Workforce & Expense Management Supports
Lean Manufacturing Initiatives
Consider the example of a manufacturing plant that needs to run production on a
Saturday. From a scheduler’s perspective, they need to not only identify workers
who have the right skill sets but also determine who is already scheduled to work
as opposed to scheduling others whose Saturday hours may result in time and
a half or double time. By utilizing a software solution for this type of scheduling
situation, managers can easily gauge their resource availability and consider the
costs of the talent needed to ensure that production schedules are met.
A dashboard view of the workforce and insight into the skill sets of the available staff
enables managers to make the most effective staffing and talent management
decisions. This enterprise level visibility ensures better alignment with contract
requirements, worker certifications and skills and shifts schedules to meet
forecasted demand, further enabling companies to meet their business objectives.
A workforce management solution with scheduling optimization also eliminates
errors that result from time-consuming manual processes. Along with increased
accuracy from electronic data entry, a workforce scheduling solution ensures time
and attendance entries are correct, reduces time theft (resulting from extended
breaks, tardy arrivals and early departures) and “buddy punching” (when one
employee “clocks in” for another), while enforcing adherence to business rules
and facilitating compliance with government regulations, as well as with internal
policies and union requirements. Since these business rules drive accruals, paid
time off, time accrued towards participation in retirement programs and leave
management, having them properly tracked and validated can result in greater
accuracy of benefits accruals and lower payroll costs.
The Solution: Versatile and Flexible Technology
When choosing a solution, companies look for applications that meet their cost
requirements. One option is the traditional in-house license fee model. A more
desirable alternative is the flexibility of either an in-house model or an off-premise Technology
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. The SaaS On Demand delivery model speeds facilitated gains
the implementation process at a more affordable price. As companies evolve, can contribute
having this flexibility ensures the solution will continue to meet business needs. to higher customer
satisfaction levels,
As competition intensifies, manufacturers are turning to technology to improve
greater operational
business processes whenever and wherever possible. Data intensive manual
efficiencies and
or semi-automated timekeeping, scheduling and expense report processing
tighter control
practices are often prone to error and do not provide the flexibility to address the
of labor costs
responsiveness a manufacturer needs to display to remain competitive in today’s
for manufacturers.
business environment. Increased agility, enhanced mobility and self-service and
workflow capabilities are technology facilitated gains that can contribute to higher
customer satisfaction levels, greater operational efficiencies and tighter control of
labor costs for manufacturers.
Endnotes
1Trendline Survey, American Payroll Association, June 2008.
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