Employing Enhanced Labour Planning Techniques to help with Labour Shortage Problems

You only have to turn on the news at the moment to hear on an almost daily basis about the labour shortage issues threatening to cripple businesses across multiple sectors. From manufacturing to farming and logistics to retail, it seems like almost no sector is immune.

With no end to the issue seemingly in sight, there is a need to take an alternative approach, focusing on efficiency and performance in general, to mitigate the impact of labour shortages.

For over 20 years, Libra has been working with businesses to help overcome their labour shortage issues through a number of targeted interventions. Unsurprisingly, we have seen an increase in companies requesting our help with this type of intervention in recent months.

Interventions generally involve the following:-

• Enhanced Labour Planning – eliminating waste and optimising productivity either to increase output with the same manpower or to create the same output with fewer man-hours
• Efficiency Savings – using lean techniques to streamline processes and minimise resource required at each touchpoint, production line balancing, automation opportunities
• Improved Vehicle Load Utilisation – optimising load utilisation to reduce costs and improve supply chain functionality

Whilst we might undertake a project with labour savings as its main target, our projects usually deliver additional benefits to our clients. For example, it’s again been well publicised that supply chains are currently under extreme pressure – a natural by-product of the measures taken to achieve labour savings can often be less material waste, reduced giveaway and increased yields, providing an additional benefit, especially within the manufacturing sector.

During the scoping phase of a project with a client, we always approach it both with their strategic aims in mind as well as from an efficiency and performance point of view. We typically achieve an ROI of 3:1 and will not undertake projects that don’t promise significant payback.

However you look at things, there doesn’t appear to be an immediate solution to the widespread labour shortage issues impacting businesses at the moment – there has never been a better time to approach the issue from a different angle and achieve significant cost savings at the same time.

To discuss further how we might be able to help your business, please contact Myles Webb (myles.webb@libraeurope.com)