What once was a rather simple task - determining a workers qualifications to hold a particular position and scheduling personnel in a shift rotation - has, through the introduction of increasingly complex regulatory and labor work restraints become a time-consuming and often times frustrating process.

Many organizations use a collection of loosely-coupled spreadsheets, databases, and manual forms to manage the personnel qualification and scheduling process. This approach leaves wide-open the possibility for mistakes in the scheduling of personnel who are not qualified for the positions to which they are assigned, or overworking personnel beyond the regulatory and/or labor agreement work limits. These oversights can result in costly regulatory fines or labor grievances being filed.

To better manage this process, the eSOMS Personnel Qualifications & Scheduling (PQ&S) module has the tools to:

• Develop and maintain user requirements and associated position qualifications
• Track user requirement status via direct input or links to external sources (e.g. training databases)
• Generate, staff, and validate shift schedules from pre-defined watchbill rotations, incorporating time-off
• Evaluate schedules for compliance with position qualification requirements and work-hour limits

Features of the eSOMS PQ&S Module

The Personnel Qualifications & Scheduling module features:

Qualifications Management - Tools are provided to create and maintain user requirements and position qualifications. User requirements encompass a range of entities that affect a users qualification to hold a particular watchbill position. Examples of user requirements include certifications, licenses, medical examinations, training classes, watch-hours stood, etc. User requirements can be combined into complex logical expressions using Boolean operators (e.g. AND, OR, NOT), and internal functions (e.g. to calculate hours worked, rounds taken, etc.) to form a position qualification.

Watchbill Management - Watchbills are the required shift complements created for departments and their schedule routines (e.g. 8-hour weekday, 12-hour weekend, etc.). Watchbill rotations (6 crew weekly rotation, 4 crew rotation, short rotations, etc.) are created and extended into the future based upon planned schedule requirements and adjusted to accommodate interruptions (e.g. planned outages).

Schedule Management - The Scheduler performs evaluations of personnel compliance with position qualifications and work-hour limits over a chosen time-frame. Qualification non-compliance, work limit violations, time-off (vacation, leave, etc.), and other scheduling conflicts are identified before-the-fact to allow adjustments to be made to schedules in advance if necessary. The Scheduler allows for fine-tuning (replacement of on-shift personnel, addition of temporary shift positions, etc.) and adjustments to standard shift staffing requirements. This "entry-by-exception" method significantly reduces the amount of data input required to maintain the system.

Modular Integration - PQ&S integrates with Configuration Control, Clearances, Operator Rounds, and Narrative Logs to ensure personnel compliance at the point of performance of operations related tasks.