Why Schedule Optimization?
Manually creating schedules for a team of field technicians is time-consuming work, and can become very complex very quickly when there are multiple factors to take into account - factors such as skills, service areas, permits, technician availability, and many more besides.
Even when all that planning work is done, how can we tell if the schedule we created is optimal? Are we sending technicians out of their way when there were more efficient routes available? Were there minor service calls that could have been picked up along the way at little extra cost?
A further challenge is capturing the tribal knowledge of our teams. For example, our senior planners rely on their years of experience to plan their technicians' routes, but how we we pass that knowledge on to the next generation of planners? This is where schedule optimization and scheduling policies can help.
Build optimized schedules with Smart Scheduler
Smart Scheduler is FieldAware’s tool for optimizing your schedules. Our optimization engine can assign large batches of work to a team of field technicians in a matter of seconds or minutes, potentially cutting out hours of manual work. It will ensure that only the most suitable technicians are sent to the job location by taking the following factors into account:
Technician Skills
Geographical Service Areas served by the technician
The Start & End Locations of the technicians
Permits required for location access
Techs who are excluded from customers' locations
Location Access Hours
Working hours and overtime
Exceptional working hours, such as shift work
Unavailable Time
Job Time Windows - earliest start and/or latest finish
Job Predecessors and Successors, including preferred same tech
What are Scheduling Policies?
A scheduling policy is a configuration that allows you control the Smart Scheduler by combining the above rules with scheduling goals to give the best results for your business.
You can create multiple scheduling policies to suit different scenarios - for example a Standard Policy that respects the core rules of your business and prioritizes reducing travel costs, or an Emergency Policy that prioritizes response times, even if that means sending less-skilled technicians to the customer. You can put switch between policies at any time in response to changing conditions.
See Optimized Scheduling using the Smart Scheduler for information on using Smart Scheduler.
See Smart Scheduler 2.0 for information on the latest features for Smart Scheduler.