LEDAS Workforce Optimizer: Manpower and workforce scheduling and planning solution. Staff scheduling in call-centers, cashier allocation, nurse scheduling, crew rostering, aircrafts assignment, and others.

LEDAS Workforce Optimizer (LETOM)

LETOM is a workforce optimization (WFO) solution and technology that supports automatic and interactive search for optimal and sub-optimal solutions; it can be used for manpower and workforce scheduling/planning, staff scheduling in call-centers, cashier allocation, nurse scheduling, crew rostering, aircraft assignment, and other applications and services.

When specifying a problem for LETOM, the user can, in particular, do the following:

• include a rich and flexible set of factors affecting the solution, and
• restrict the search for a solution by such requirements as minimizing/limiting costs or maximizing/guaranteeing quality of service.

Most systems presented at today's software market actually substitute for a sheet of paper and an eraser, because users must still build their timetables manually. However, the increasing number of employees makes it more difficult to create a schedule that convenient for everybody. Writing a good schedule may take many days of manager's efforts. Surely the staff manager would like to reduce the time for composing a schedule and to simplify the process itself. LETOM, unlike all other systems, allows one to define the requirements and constraints for positions in a natural, direct way, as well as to specify available personnel with their preferences - optimal schedules are then constructed automatically.

LETOM will help the enterprises without regular shifts or those where regular shifts are used just for the convenience of scheduling. LETOM builds schedules in which changes of personnel can occur at any time with hourly (or even higher) precision. Two important cases where such a facility is in great demand are:

• Small to medium service enterprises that hire students as part-timers. The students' personal class schedules will be taken into account in order to organize continuous all-day service.
• Call centers that have complicated load profiles. Adjusting shifts according to the profile will help to reduce overall agent idle time.

A highly extensible WFS core and powerful computational engine have been implemented by now as the basis of the whole LETOM technology. A full-featured prototype application targeting small-to-medium-size service enterprises is available.

Among the solutions somewhat similar to LETOM, two attractive although not so widely used systems are worth mentioning: the ILOG Planner library (a tool for creating workforce planning systems) and the systems of IntelEngine. Both companies declare success with their solutions, which promises the same for LETOM due to a similar approach. Some Call Center software vendors include WFS in their packages, but mostly these subsystems are still built in a bookkeeping style.