Engineered Labor Standards ("ELS") Management

• US 20090063258A1
• Filed: 08/29/2007
• Published: 03/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP SE
• Inventors: Sabelfeld, Wassilli, Reinhardt, Christian, Mueller, Juergen, Puchta, Markus, Janhoefer, Ulrike
• Application Number:
  US11/847,254
• Publication Number:
  US 20090063258A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/11
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06312 Adjustment or analysis of established resource schedule, e.g. resource or task levelling, or dynamic rescheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06314 Calendaring for a resource
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06398 Performance of employee with respect to a job function
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1097 Task assignment

Abstract

An Engineered Labor Standards (“ELS”) scheduling system prepares preliminary estimates of task durations based on a subset of the conditions affecting task duration, then later prepares adjusted estimates when more information about the conditions becomes available. The actual time a resource spends performing the task is measured, and the estimates and measurements are stored in a database.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

preparing a preliminary estimate of a task duration based on a subset of a plurality of conditions;

preparing an adjusted estimate of the task duration based on the plurality of conditions;

measuring an actual duration of the task; and

storing the preliminary estimate, the adjusted estimate and the actual duration in a database.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the preliminary estimate, the adjusted estimate and the actual duration form an estimate-duration triplet, the method further comprising:

storing a plurality of additional estimate-duration triplets in the database; and

evaluating an accuracy of the preliminary estimate based on an average difference between adjusted estimates and corresponding actual durations.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

preparing a plurality of adjusted estimates, each adjusted estimate corresponding to one of a plurality of resources that could perform the task; and

assigning the task to one of the plurality of resources based on the plurality of adjusted estimates.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of conditions includes at least one of a weight of an item, a size of the item, a volume of the item, an aggregation quantity of the item, a packaging type of the item, a material group of the item, a source location or a destination location.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of conditions includes a characteristic of a specific tool used to perform the task.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

collecting a plurality of estimated and actual task performance times of a worker, wherein each of the plurality of estimated task performance times incorporates a condition that cannot be determined until performance of a task commences;

computing a worker efficiency based on a difference between corresponding pairs of estimated and actual performance times; and

adjusting a compensation of the worker according to the worker efficiency.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the condition is one of a specific tool used to perform the task, a location of the worker at a beginning of the task or a set of concurrent tasks occurring where the task is to be performed.

8. A computer-readable medium containing data and instructions to cause a programmable processor to perform operations comprising:

preparing a preliminary estimate of a time required to perform a task;

refining the preliminary estimate based on a condition that was indefinite when the preliminary estimate was prepared, and became definite before the preliminary estimate was refined;

measuring an actual time required to perform the task; and

storing the refined preliminary estimate and the actual time in a database.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 8 containing additional data and instructions to cause the programmable processor to perform operations comprising:

scheduling a task to be performed by a resource; and

identifying a plurality of steps of the task;

wherein

preparing the preliminary estimate comprises calculating a sum of estimated times to complete each of the plurality of steps.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 8 containing additional data and instructions to cause the programmable processor to perform operations comprising:

selecting one of a plurality of resources to perform the task based on a refined preliminary estimate prepared for each of the plurality of resources; and

dispatching the selected one of the plurality of resources to perform the task.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 8 wherein the condition is one of a velocity of a resource to perform the task, a worker who is to perform the task, or an interference from a concurrent task.

12. A method comprising:

scheduling a task to be performed by an undetermined resource of a plurality of resources;

computing an estimated time for a hypothetical resource to complete the task, the estimated time computation omitting a unique characteristic of the undetermined resource and a situational characteristic of the undetermined resource;

computing an adjusted estimated time for a selected resource of the plurality of resources to complete the task, the adjusted estimated time computation including a unique characteristic of the selected resource and a situational characteristic of the selected resource;

assigning the task to the selected resource; and

measuring an actual time required for the selected resource to complete the task.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the unique characteristic of the selected resource is a speed of the selected resource.

14. The method of claim 12 wherein the situational characteristic of the selected resource is a location of the selected resource before beginning the task.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

computing an adjusted estimated time for each resource of the plurality of resources to complete the task, each adjusted estimated time computation including a unique characteristic of the corresponding resource and a situational characteristic of the corresponding resource.

16. An Engineered Labor Standards (“

ELS”

) scheduling system comprising;

a plurality of scheduled tasks;

a plurality of resources to execute the scheduled tasks; and

task estimation logic to estimate a time required to execute a task, wherein

the task estimation logic is to produce a preliminary estimate based on partial information before the task is to be executed; and

the task estimation logic is to produce an adjusted estimate based on complete information when the task is to be executed.

17. The ELS scheduling system of claim 16, further comprising:

task assignment logic to assign the task to one of the plurality of resources based on a plurality of adjusted estimates, wherein each of the plurality of adjusted estimates indicates an approximate time for a corresponding one of the plurality of resources to perform the task.

18. The ELS scheduling system of claim 17 wherein the task assignment logic is to select a best resource of the plurality of resources to perform the task.

19. The ELS scheduling system of claim 17 wherein the task assignment logic is to select a best task of the plurality of scheduled tasks to be assigned to a resource.