At a glance
At OXEA's Werk Ruhrchemie site in Oberhausen, shift planning is the foundation of plant safety. Instead of using isolated Excel spreadsheets, the plant plans with Hawk IVO Plan. The software matches the requirements of the facilities with employees' valid qualifications and certificates and is used in several areas of the plant.
Starting point
OXEA uses Hawk IVO Plan, including its work interfaces.
At the Werk Ruhrchemie site in Oberhausen, hundreds of complex facilities stand on 1.2 km². Work goes on around the clock. Here, shift planning is more than a question of staffing. It is the foundation of plant safety, because a facility may only be staffed with employees whose qualifications and certificates are valid.
For a long time, planning was done in isolated Excel spreadsheets. As complexity grew, these spreadsheets became an incalculable risk.
The task
The plant needed a tool that matches the requirements of the facilities with employees’ qualifications during planning. It also had to handle nested qualification matrices.
Solution with Hawk IVO Plan
OXEA switched from Excel to a professional planning tool that is now called Hawk IVO Plan. The software matches the requirements of the facilities with employees’ valid certificates and also handles nested qualification matrices.
At the Oberhausen plant, Hawk IVO Plan is used in six areas, each with its own planning environment, including the plant fire department, the security service, logistics and the power plant. It covers:
- Attendance at the plant
- Qualification management and safety pass
- Time tracking and shift accounts
- Shift planning
For OXEA, Hawk IVO Plan is operated in a private cloud.
Result
Planning relies on a shared tool instead of individual spreadsheets. The software checks during planning whether a staffing assignment meets the requirements of a facility. Today, six areas of the plant plan with Hawk IVO Plan.
To find out when a spreadsheet is no longer enough, read the knowledge article When Excel is no longer enough for shift planning. The article Qualification matrix in shift planning explains how qualifications are mapped in planning.
Video case study
The video case study “Die Komplexitätsgrenze: Warum die Großchemie Excel abschaffen musste” (in German) shows the plant and its planning. It still uses the former product name HAWK AI Planning. You can find it in the news item Video case study: shift planning in the large-scale chemical industry.