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Team Make-Up and Work Allocation at N.V. Kempense Steenkolenmijnen
T6Al TEAM MAKE-UP AND WORK ALLOCATION AT N.V. KEMPENSE STEENKOLENMIJNEN
ir. H. Eraly Project Manager, N.V. Kempense Steenkolenmijnen, Houthalen, Belgium
these decisions very difficult, if not impossible, was the very short time available between the moment where one knew who was present and the moment when the miners went towards the different working places from where it is uneconomical to have them return. The overcome these difficulties we investigated for a system which, with the help of the computer, could help management to make the right decisions, according to the varying conditions, to obtain the best distribution of personnel.
ABSTRACT The allocation of miners to teams, and of teams to production faces, is complicated by the high degree of absenteeism of miners in Belgium. Therefore, the exact knowledge of who is actually present at the beginning of a shift and of the exact skills of those present, enables the foremen and mine captains to constitute their teams before all men go down into the mine in the most effective way possible. This paper describes the system of attendance recording and of displays which the foremen use to constitute their teams and/ or to interrogate the personnel data base in order to do so. It shows how the foremen dialogue with the computer, to change the function of a miner within a team, to another team, or the function of a team as a whole. The implementation of the system, data bases, and data communication equipment and procedures, is described. The benefits obtained are presented for each level of the company: foremen and team supervisors, engineers, mine management.
2. TEAM ALLOCATION BEFORE INTRODUCTION OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM Even though the situation was slightly different from one pit to the next, the case of Zolder, where we started the application, can give a good idea of how work and team allocation was done before. At Zolder there are 3 main shifts, at 6, 14 and 22 hours and 3 intermediary shifts at noon, 18 hours and midnight. The production work places are divided among the East and West divisions. Miners arrive as early as an hour before the shift start and wait until they are called to the room where actual work distribution is done. This work distribution room in Zolder is small and far from the shafts. Therefore the miners are called in groups, per work place, at different moments, starting 20 minutes before the theoretical hour and until 10 minutes after that hour. The order and time of call is a consequence of the train schedule underground, the hours of the cages and the time necessary to walk from the work distribution room to the shaft. When the miners of a given work place are called in the shower building (via a horn and posting of the work place number) they go to the lamp-room which is next to the work distribution room. Each one takes his lamp and a punched card which will be used for attendance recording. Then they go to
1. INTRODUCTION The coal industry is characterized by the high proportion of costs due to manpower. Thus salaries and related expenses represented 71 % of the total cost of extracting coal at the N.V. Kempense Steenkolenmijnen Company in March 1975. Furthermore, in the mines of Belgium, absenteeism is at a high rate and unpredictable. For 1974 the average absenteeism was 24 % of the total work force, with 40 % for some months, which means that some days it is over 50 %. Such a situation causes severe organization problems for the men in charge of the different work-places who must decide on the best distribution of the incoming personnel, according to the variable needs of their different work places. What made
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To meet the requirement of providing the information more quickly in order to have more time for making the work allocation, it was necessary to create a system which provided all necessary data as early as possible, that is at the moment when a miner enters the colliery premises.
the work distribution room where they give their punched cards to the supervisors who thus know who is present. But, as they have only 10 minutes to make up the teams and, as they do not know the situation of personnel in the other work places, present or still to come, the supervisors have great difficulties to make valid changes. In most cases the changes can be made only at train departure, which is materially and economincally very difficult. The result is that, because of lack of time and of information, the make up of a team was far from being optimal.
We realized such a system by using a computer with tele-processing techniques. The concept of the application is simple. The worker arriving at the colliery gate takes a punched card in a rack and puts it into an appropriate box. An operator, every two minutes, picks up all the cards in the box and puts them into a card-reader. This card-reader is linked via a TP line to the computer. It sends the data punched in the cards, the mannumbers of the workers, to the computer. The computer has in its files the identification, qualifications, function, usual work place and other data for each worker. It also knows the detailed work allocation plan for every work place. All this information is displayed on VDU terminals to the supervisors. Thus, any worker arriving at the mine is signalled at the most 2 minutes later, with all his qualifications and other data, to his supervisor. The supervisor can, in conversational mode, interrogate the computer. He first adapts the work allocation plan to the day's actual needs; he then asks that his personnel be presented according to this adapted plan. Thus, for every function the lack or excess of personnel will be shown clearly. The supervisor can correct these discrepancies by moving the workers from one function to another function in his own work-place, or to another work-place asking for people. He does this on the terminal in conversational mode.
OBJECTIVES OF THE NEW SYSTEM The objective of the new system was to eliminate these difficulties by providing the necessary information in time. To be effective the system should meet the following requirements: - the number of miners present needs to be known in time - physical exchange of personnel should be possible. Other external constraints, specific to the Zolder pit, had to be respected: - physical exchange of personnel can be done at the work distribution room only, nobody can be personnally reached in the showers building; one cannot ask personnel to arrive earlier; knowing that he will be called at hour H a man will arrive at the main gate at H - 12 minutes at the latest, otherwise he will be late; the buses arrive at the latest 45 minutes before the theoretical shift start hour; the work allocation room contains 7 sections; this allows for the simultaneous presence of the personnel of four workplaces only, because 3 of the sections are reserved for the maintenance, preparation and recovery departments; the first cage leaves 15 minutes before the shift hour; there is a known pattern of arrivals of personnel, with a peak hour; teams must leave the work distribution room at two minutes intervals to avoid too large a crowd at the cages; the order in which work places are called to the cages is a function of the transportation constraints; it is nevertheless possible to call all work-places of one division first then the other division.
When the team make-up is satisfactory and when the closing hour for his work-place is reached, the supervisor asks to the computer for a printout of the make-up of his team by entering at the terminal the number of mine cars ~intends to produce with the available personnel. Automatically an attached printer produces the required document which shows the repartition of personnel per function and also the instructions to issue to realize this repartition: all workers whose function or work-place is changed are mentioned separately. This enables issuing of orders by exception very rapidly. With this list the supervisor goes to the work distribution room where he now has the time to make the necessary modifications. Using the data collected the computer prints lists of forecasts for the mine management who thus has an overall view of the actual distribution of personnel for every work-place and for the whole pit.
3. WORK ALLOCATION Under this title we regroup all information and decisions which are necessary to prepare the work distribution and to make-up the teams. The work distribution itself being only the transmittal of orders to the workers.
3.2. History The problem of team make-up has existed at Zolder for a long time. A first attempt to solve it was made in 1964 with badge readers linked to the computer. This attempt was unsuccessful because of
3.1. Concept of the application
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the unreliability of the badge readers and because the lists were printed in the computer room, causing therefore a loss of time to fetch them.
were fixed in such a way that all workplaces of one division are called first, then all those of the other division. - the data-processing department had to create all the IMS data bases. - response times were measured; as they were too long at the beginning, access methods and data bases had to be reorgaDized to reduce them. 3.3. Configuration
At the end of 1971 a new study of the problem was launched. In view of the possibilities of the new hardware and software available, and specially IMS, the management of KS approved the "IMS project", the team make-up and work allocation application being one part of this project. A study was then carried out on the wishes and needs of all pits in the area of team make-up and work allocation. The resulting analysis of the problem took into account all realistic and unrealistic demands and included a highly sophisticated solution. This solution was not implemented because we wanted to start with a simple solution, easily acceptable by the end-users and which left the responsibility of all decisions to these users, the computer being only a means to prepare these decisions. Following steps were retained: - the displaying of the personnel on the screens - the comparison between this personnel and a plan for an ideal team - the manual displacement of personnel (the supervisors entering their decisions via the keyboard) - several statistics. To keep implementation in line with the plan and to ensure that the programs developped covered the real needs of the users, weekly meetings were held by the project manager, the problem analyst, the system analyst and the users. About 30 programs were written and examined, all operating under IMS, and most in teleprocessing. Despite the difficulties due to the use of a new language, PL/l, and the lack of experience on IMS in Belgium, we managed to follow the plan very closely and to be ready in April 1974. Technical difficulties on our 370, newly installed, delayed the final start up of the application until May 1974. Before this final start-up an important organization work had to be completed: - the supervisors were taught to use the terminals and to converse with the computer. Two weeks of training with the terminal have been sufficient to accustom the supervisors to the new system. - the engineers had to choose the different functions to use, to create the plans of team composition, called microplans, to allocate a function, a shift, a work-place to each worker. - the administrative departments had to learn to update the system with newly hired workers, and with known causes of absences such as injuries or illnesses, classes attented, holidays, etc. - the train departures underground, the hours of departure at the supervisors' room and at the work distribution room
The present installed configuration at Zolder is as follows: At the entrance of the mine: A 2770 system with a 100 card/minute reader and a 1053 printer. The card reader is attended by an operator who collects the cards from the different boxes every two minutes and loads them on the reader. A card reader was preferred to a badge reader for several reasons: - the bad experience with badge readers in 1964 - the possibility of forgetting or losing a badge - the possibility of introducing the badge wrongly in the reader, which causes the badge not to be read - the possibility of introducing objects which can cause break-ups or malfunctions of the reader - the time necessary to introduce the badge and to wait until it is liberated is longer than to slip a card in a box, and this could cause jams at the door. The disavantages of using cards are: - the cards must be placed in racks before every shift and must be sorted. - an operator is needed to put the cards in the reader. - a delay of up to two minutes can occur between the time a card is in the box and the time it is read. The card reader and 1053 printer are linked to the 3705 controller by a 4800 bauds BSC line via two 3978 modems. At the supervisors' room: 10 x terminals with display and keyboards, 3277 mod. 2 (24 lines of 80 characters) 2 printers 3286 at 66 characters/second. The displays and printers are connected to the 3271 control unit which is linked to the 3705 controlled by a 4800 bauds BSC line via two 3978 modems. 4. PROGRAMMING AND DATA As only the man-number punched in the cards is communicated to the computer, at the time of making up the teams, a large amount of information must be known by the computer in advance. These data are stored in data bases managed by the IMS system. 4.1. Fixed Data 4.1.1. PersonnelD.B. which contains all
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4.3.1. Microplan
the necessary information on every man. 4.1.2. Work-place D.B. In this data base all work-places of a shift are regrouped per division and all data concerning these work-places are stored. For every work-place the following informations are stored: the different functions planned for the work-place with the total number of persons per function. 4.1.3. Functions D.B. All functions and second tasks are stored in this D.B. with an abbreviated name, full description, and "macro" group to which they belong. 4.1.4. Team Allocation and Work Distribution D.B. The two segments of this data base show the personnel present for a given day. They are kept for two working days, so that it is possible to enquire about any shift of the previous day. - the work distribution segment contains the screen lay-out: it shows how many workers should have been present and how many actually were, at work distribution time. It is a working data base which enables to directly place a man-number in a work place at a given function in the first free zone. All modifications made at the time of team and work allocation are stored in this segment. 4.2. Reading and Processing of the Cards for Team Allocation The cards are read by the reader located at the colliery entrance. The computer controls that every man-number read exists in the personnel data base. If it does not, a message is printed on the 1053 printer. Data and hour of reading are stored. For every man, from the work place and function mentioned in the personnel data base, the computer seeks in the work distribution segment the exact zone where the man must be recorded in the team allocation segment and enters his number at the corresponding function.
The microplan screen shows how the team of a given work-place should be made up. This framework plan can be modified for a given shift, according to circumstances. If it has already been adapted this is shown on the screen. From the microplan the user can call the team make-up option. 4.3.2. Team make-up This screen shows the workers who at the time of the call of this option, are already present for this work-place at the colliery. From there on the operator can either call back the same option (to update arrivals) or choose one of the following operation. 4.3.2.1. Change the team make-up: move one man-number from one function to another, or to another work-place. 4.3.2.2. Enter a man-number at the display terminal, for example if the worker has not taken his card or in case of double shift. The computer controls the validity and presence of this man-number. 4.3.2.3. To globally move a team to another work-place for this shift, excepting the man-numbers entered by the user. 4.3.2.4. Closing up the team make-up. This is possible only 5 minutes before the hour fixed for closing up for the work-place considered. Every work-place has its own closing hour. After closing, this team can be looked at only in the archives of the data base. Closing up means that, after entering the number of mine cars he hopes to produce during the shift, the supervisor receives the printed list of all personnel present at the colliery, allocated to his team, per function, with all modifications made during the make-up of the team of his work-place. All personnel arriving after the closing hour is also listed with the mention "too late". 4.3.3. OK List This list can be asked directly from any screen image. The result is identical to the list printed at the closing of a work-place. 4.3.4. List of Presences at Second Task This screen picture shows the man-numbers of all those present at a given second task. 4.3.5. List of Presences at a Division
If the man's card is read later than the closing hour for his work-place he is entered in the work distribution segment with the mention "Late". 4.3. Work Allocation by the User. The user can either allocate work or inquire upon the archives of a given shift. This choice is offered on a special screen image. From the selection screen the user can choose any of the following options: - the microplan - team make-up - OK list - list of those present at second task - list of those present at the division
This screen picture shows, sorted by "macro" group, the total numbers of personnel present for a given division. This information helps management to decide the number of work-places to allocate or whether to stop one given work-place because of lack of personnel or not. 4.4. Archives Enquiries The following informations covering
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for every function. Attendance recording is kept for two weeks in the team make-up data base. 4.7.3. List of Workers Present Without a Card or Vice Versa. At every shift a comparison is made between the presence cards (given at the lamp-room) and the entrance cards (at the gate). A list is produced showing: - personnel with an entrance card but absent (did not go to the lamp-room) - personnel without an entrance card but present - warning notice for every man without an entrance card.
the last 3 shifts can be consulted: team make-up - OK Lists - second tasks presences - division presences. The situation at the closing for the workplace or at the end of the shift is thus displayed. No modifications can be made at this stage. 4.5. Lists Several lists can be obtained by selection from a screen displaying the list of options (VL~. 4.5.1. Colliery Forecasts This list shows all personnel present (including those too late) for a given shift, per pit, per working place. It also contains the expected production and the calculated productivity per man, globally and per work-place. 4.5.2. List of Personnel per Work-Place
5. CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE OF TYPICAL TEAM MAKE-UP AND WORK ALLOCATION When the workers arrive at the gate of the colliery each one takes a punched card. The cards are sorted out by man-number in racks. Each worker slips his card into an appropriate box. An operator empties the box, puts the cards into a card reader and the data punched in them is sent to the computer where it is available for the supervisor to ask upon. The supervisor of a given work-place chooses a display terminal among those available in the supervisors' room. He pushes the CLEAR button then enters VB which are the initials of VOORBEZETTING (preparation of teams). These two letters are the only procedure which the supervisor must know by heart. The computer answers by displaying the starting list of options on the screen. All instructions during the procedure are always displayed on the screen and the supervisors have only to read to know what to do to call up any program. Once the first list of options is displayed the supervisor calls his microplan by keying in a 1, his work-place number, and the shift number. The computer displays back the standard team of this workplace with all planned function and the number of workers for every function. When, for any reason, the micro-plan is not suited to the present situation he can change it. For example if the supervisor has been called from underground and been told that the bottom gate should not be worked in,he modifies his micro-plan by cancelling all workers planned for this function. When the micro-plan is adapted to the present situation of this particular shift, the supervisor asks for the personnel available to him at this time by keying-in a 4. The computer then displays the man-numbers of the workers already present for every function in the adapted plan. The supervisor thus has an overall view of the personnel of his work-place.
This list shows the personnel entered per work-place, per function, with an indication of normal or extra shift. It can be obtained per shift or for all shifts together. 4.6. Information Screens One can consult several data bases through a screen of available options (VI) . For example: Personnel Data Base. This screen gives all available data on one man-number. It is divided into 3 parts: - field data: man-number, name, address, nationality, etc. - work organization at the pit: all data concerning the work allocation of a given man-number such as function and work-place. - work distribution: last date at which the man has worked, his last work-place, last function, hour at which he entered the colliery, etc. 4.7. Control Lists A strong emphasis has been put on the control lists. 4.7.1. List of Mistakes of Team Preparation. Every day a list of mistakes per shift is produced: - personnel arrived late - work-places where work has been distributed but where no team make-up was prepared in advance. - personnel with a function which is not planned for the work-place they are allocated to - personnel present without a file. 4.7.2. Comparison Between Work Distribution and Attendance Recording.
If for any function there are too many workers, a plus is placed before the mannumber of all those in excess.
A control is made daily for every workplace and every function of the' personnel allocated to a team and actually recorded
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If the number of workers is too small, the missing ones are replaced by lines of minus signs. If the number of zones reserved for a function is too small to receive all workers present the supervisor can call easily "next page" by pushing on the PA 1 function key. The lay-out of every "page" is identical to that of the micro-plan itself. To update the screen with the latest arrivals the supervisor keys- in a B. To modify the allocation of workers, to another function, or to another work-place, he keys in a W. The man-numbers of workers coming from another work-place are displayed with double-brillance. At the hour of closing his work-place, when he has made all changes possible according to the personnel actually present, the supervisor can see on the screen the image of all the personnel with whom he now will go underground and try to achieve his production objectives. Based on the number present the supervisor makes this forecast. He keys-in 5 to aks for the OK list, the question "what is your forecast production of mine cars ?" is displayed on the screen. The supervisor keys-in his forecast and the team make-up and work distribution list is automatically printed on one of the printers in the supervisors' room. With this list the supervisor goes then to the work distribution room. The list is divided in two sections: - the first one lists all man-numbers of those present, sorted out by function, the total number per function and the total number of workers allocated to a production task, that is at the face, for the work-place; - the second one shows all changes made either to the microplan or to the work allocations, and mentions separately all workers who must be warned that they have changed function, who must move to another work-place, and who come another work-place. The actual work distribution task consists only in warning the people who have been moved on the screens. Once this physical distribution is made the supervisor goes to the engineer in charge to confirm his production forecast. The engineer, with the team make-up list, wants to control the validity of this forecast. Besides the programs described previously there are several others which concern the engineers rather than the supervisor: VI programs: give data on a given worker VL programs: give different lists VM programs: allow the creation of microplans VF programs: allow the creation or updating of functions VP programs: allow to create or cancel or modify a personnel record.
The advantages of this application are numerous and reach several levels in the company. We will look at 3 of them only: supervisors, engineers, mine manager. 6.1. For the supervisors the main advantages are: - a faster availability of information on personnel present which increases the time available to prepare the work allocation, - in addition to the presence the computer also shows the usual function and qualifications of those present which results in: the possibility to utilize productive workers optimally a better knowledge of one's personnel a better utilization of the specific qualities of every body - through the micro-plan the supervisor is informed of the ideal team which his manager wants to see implemented - by adapting this micro-plan the supervisor remains responsible of adapting the ideal plan to the actual needs of his shift. By entering these modifications immediately into the computer he frees his mind of the problem, the computer will remind him of them when required. - by comparing the personnel present with the planned team make-up the computer displays and makes evident all functions where a problem exists and the supervisor must intervene. The supervisor does not overlook any of these anomalies even those concerning secondary tasks which were much neglected before. - every modification brought to the team make-up is immediately displayed. - when the supervisor is satisfied with the team realized he gives the OK signal and the computer prints out a clear list recalling all decisions made during the preparation of the work distribution; this list is, by the amount of details it contains, a part of the report the supervisor must make to his engineer. - the work distribution itself is made "by exception". Only those men moved must be given notice. The others do not come to the attention of the supervisor. In fact the system improves the team makeup and work allocation in three ways: - it enables to start earlier by informing earlier - it enables to continue later by reducing the time necessary to issue instruc tions. - it improves the efficiency of the supervisors by having them work in successive steps. Besides these direct and major advantages for the supervisor there are some indirect ones: - the guarantee that a man temporarily transferred to another work-place will be automatically returned at the end of the period, therefore a greater mobility of personnel between work-places.
6. ADVANTAGES OF THE TEAM AND WORK ALLOCA-
TION
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- in the first moments of work allocation he can consult the number present per division and per group of functions; this shows the sort of decisions to take to make-up all teams for this shift, for example to close down certain work-places. - the possibility to consult the team make-ups of the previous shifts can bring valuable additional information. - the possibility to control the presence of personnel having other functions than their normal tasks (loader of personnel, bus manager, ... ) exists. 6.2. For the engineers there are also many advantages: - each engineer must establish in advance his personnel requirements, and for every worker fix his function and qualification; this results for each work-place in a well studied plan and in a better knowledge of the personnel. - the control of the supervisors is easy for the present shift as well as for the two previous shifts. - the engineers have a written support to help them prepare with the supervisors the shift report which will be more constructive. - the engineer is informed of the production the supervisor commits himself to, in function of the number of productive manpower, and he can control it. - the direct access to the data bases is a source of immediate information which helps him in the organization of tasks and, avoiding a lot of administration delays, saves his time. - the comparison between work allocation and attendance recording shows the defects of the organization. - the engineer has all the means necessary to actually manage his personnel, which is of foremost importance in the coal mining industry.
better geological conditions, new type of props, new work organization, etc ... It is nevertheless realistic to admit that the new system allows the use of one more productive worker per shift, which represents 20 mine cars of coal. This largely justifies the system. The best proof of the interest of the system is that the directors of all other pits in our Company have asked to have the same system available for their own use, after having studied the system at Zolder. The system has been implemented at the Waterschei pit in December 1974, at the Winterslag pit in Juni 1975, it has been operational at Beringen since July 1975 and at Eisden since December 1975.
6.3. For the management of the mine one can list the following advantages: - an immediate control of the production and productivity forecasted. - an immediate control of the utilization and distribution of productive personnel. - the possibility to judge the relative needs in manpower for any function in the light actual data on team make-ups, in order to fix hiring and training policies. - before the descent of the personnel, a complete manpower allocation across the different groups of activities. What do all these advantages represent in terms of economic justification of the system ? Even though, when starting the application at Zolder, a measurable productivity increase occured, it would be unrealistic to attribute all of this improvement to the preparation of team make-up and work distribution alone as so many factors can influence production one way or another:
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ir. H. Eraly Project Manager, N.V. Kempense Steenkolenmijnen, Houthalen, Belgium
these decisions very difficult, if not impossible, was the very short time available between the moment where one knew who was present and the moment when the miners went towards the different working places from where it is uneconomical to have them return. The overcome these difficulties we investigated for a system which, with the help of the computer, could help management to make the right decisions, according to the varying conditions, to obtain the best distribution of personnel.
ABSTRACT The allocation of miners to teams, and of teams to production faces, is complicated by the high degree of absenteeism of miners in Belgium. Therefore, the exact knowledge of who is actually present at the beginning of a shift and of the exact skills of those present, enables the foremen and mine captains to constitute their teams before all men go down into the mine in the most effective way possible. This paper describes the system of attendance recording and of displays which the foremen use to constitute their teams and/ or to interrogate the personnel data base in order to do so. It shows how the foremen dialogue with the computer, to change the function of a miner within a team, to another team, or the function of a team as a whole. The implementation of the system, data bases, and data communication equipment and procedures, is described. The benefits obtained are presented for each level of the company: foremen and team supervisors, engineers, mine management.
2. TEAM ALLOCATION BEFORE INTRODUCTION OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM Even though the situation was slightly different from one pit to the next, the case of Zolder, where we started the application, can give a good idea of how work and team allocation was done before. At Zolder there are 3 main shifts, at 6, 14 and 22 hours and 3 intermediary shifts at noon, 18 hours and midnight. The production work places are divided among the East and West divisions. Miners arrive as early as an hour before the shift start and wait until they are called to the room where actual work distribution is done. This work distribution room in Zolder is small and far from the shafts. Therefore the miners are called in groups, per work place, at different moments, starting 20 minutes before the theoretical hour and until 10 minutes after that hour. The order and time of call is a consequence of the train schedule underground, the hours of the cages and the time necessary to walk from the work distribution room to the shaft. When the miners of a given work place are called in the shower building (via a horn and posting of the work place number) they go to the lamp-room which is next to the work distribution room. Each one takes his lamp and a punched card which will be used for attendance recording. Then they go to
1. INTRODUCTION The coal industry is characterized by the high proportion of costs due to manpower. Thus salaries and related expenses represented 71 % of the total cost of extracting coal at the N.V. Kempense Steenkolenmijnen Company in March 1975. Furthermore, in the mines of Belgium, absenteeism is at a high rate and unpredictable. For 1974 the average absenteeism was 24 % of the total work force, with 40 % for some months, which means that some days it is over 50 %. Such a situation causes severe organization problems for the men in charge of the different work-places who must decide on the best distribution of the incoming personnel, according to the variable needs of their different work places. What made
425
To meet the requirement of providing the information more quickly in order to have more time for making the work allocation, it was necessary to create a system which provided all necessary data as early as possible, that is at the moment when a miner enters the colliery premises.
the work distribution room where they give their punched cards to the supervisors who thus know who is present. But, as they have only 10 minutes to make up the teams and, as they do not know the situation of personnel in the other work places, present or still to come, the supervisors have great difficulties to make valid changes. In most cases the changes can be made only at train departure, which is materially and economincally very difficult. The result is that, because of lack of time and of information, the make up of a team was far from being optimal.
We realized such a system by using a computer with tele-processing techniques. The concept of the application is simple. The worker arriving at the colliery gate takes a punched card in a rack and puts it into an appropriate box. An operator, every two minutes, picks up all the cards in the box and puts them into a card-reader. This card-reader is linked via a TP line to the computer. It sends the data punched in the cards, the mannumbers of the workers, to the computer. The computer has in its files the identification, qualifications, function, usual work place and other data for each worker. It also knows the detailed work allocation plan for every work place. All this information is displayed on VDU terminals to the supervisors. Thus, any worker arriving at the mine is signalled at the most 2 minutes later, with all his qualifications and other data, to his supervisor. The supervisor can, in conversational mode, interrogate the computer. He first adapts the work allocation plan to the day's actual needs; he then asks that his personnel be presented according to this adapted plan. Thus, for every function the lack or excess of personnel will be shown clearly. The supervisor can correct these discrepancies by moving the workers from one function to another function in his own work-place, or to another work-place asking for people. He does this on the terminal in conversational mode.
OBJECTIVES OF THE NEW SYSTEM The objective of the new system was to eliminate these difficulties by providing the necessary information in time. To be effective the system should meet the following requirements: - the number of miners present needs to be known in time - physical exchange of personnel should be possible. Other external constraints, specific to the Zolder pit, had to be respected: - physical exchange of personnel can be done at the work distribution room only, nobody can be personnally reached in the showers building; one cannot ask personnel to arrive earlier; knowing that he will be called at hour H a man will arrive at the main gate at H - 12 minutes at the latest, otherwise he will be late; the buses arrive at the latest 45 minutes before the theoretical shift start hour; the work allocation room contains 7 sections; this allows for the simultaneous presence of the personnel of four workplaces only, because 3 of the sections are reserved for the maintenance, preparation and recovery departments; the first cage leaves 15 minutes before the shift hour; there is a known pattern of arrivals of personnel, with a peak hour; teams must leave the work distribution room at two minutes intervals to avoid too large a crowd at the cages; the order in which work places are called to the cages is a function of the transportation constraints; it is nevertheless possible to call all work-places of one division first then the other division.
When the team make-up is satisfactory and when the closing hour for his work-place is reached, the supervisor asks to the computer for a printout of the make-up of his team by entering at the terminal the number of mine cars ~intends to produce with the available personnel. Automatically an attached printer produces the required document which shows the repartition of personnel per function and also the instructions to issue to realize this repartition: all workers whose function or work-place is changed are mentioned separately. This enables issuing of orders by exception very rapidly. With this list the supervisor goes to the work distribution room where he now has the time to make the necessary modifications. Using the data collected the computer prints lists of forecasts for the mine management who thus has an overall view of the actual distribution of personnel for every work-place and for the whole pit.
3. WORK ALLOCATION Under this title we regroup all information and decisions which are necessary to prepare the work distribution and to make-up the teams. The work distribution itself being only the transmittal of orders to the workers.
3.2. History The problem of team make-up has existed at Zolder for a long time. A first attempt to solve it was made in 1964 with badge readers linked to the computer. This attempt was unsuccessful because of
3.1. Concept of the application
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the unreliability of the badge readers and because the lists were printed in the computer room, causing therefore a loss of time to fetch them.
were fixed in such a way that all workplaces of one division are called first, then all those of the other division. - the data-processing department had to create all the IMS data bases. - response times were measured; as they were too long at the beginning, access methods and data bases had to be reorgaDized to reduce them. 3.3. Configuration
At the end of 1971 a new study of the problem was launched. In view of the possibilities of the new hardware and software available, and specially IMS, the management of KS approved the "IMS project", the team make-up and work allocation application being one part of this project. A study was then carried out on the wishes and needs of all pits in the area of team make-up and work allocation. The resulting analysis of the problem took into account all realistic and unrealistic demands and included a highly sophisticated solution. This solution was not implemented because we wanted to start with a simple solution, easily acceptable by the end-users and which left the responsibility of all decisions to these users, the computer being only a means to prepare these decisions. Following steps were retained: - the displaying of the personnel on the screens - the comparison between this personnel and a plan for an ideal team - the manual displacement of personnel (the supervisors entering their decisions via the keyboard) - several statistics. To keep implementation in line with the plan and to ensure that the programs developped covered the real needs of the users, weekly meetings were held by the project manager, the problem analyst, the system analyst and the users. About 30 programs were written and examined, all operating under IMS, and most in teleprocessing. Despite the difficulties due to the use of a new language, PL/l, and the lack of experience on IMS in Belgium, we managed to follow the plan very closely and to be ready in April 1974. Technical difficulties on our 370, newly installed, delayed the final start up of the application until May 1974. Before this final start-up an important organization work had to be completed: - the supervisors were taught to use the terminals and to converse with the computer. Two weeks of training with the terminal have been sufficient to accustom the supervisors to the new system. - the engineers had to choose the different functions to use, to create the plans of team composition, called microplans, to allocate a function, a shift, a work-place to each worker. - the administrative departments had to learn to update the system with newly hired workers, and with known causes of absences such as injuries or illnesses, classes attented, holidays, etc. - the train departures underground, the hours of departure at the supervisors' room and at the work distribution room
The present installed configuration at Zolder is as follows: At the entrance of the mine: A 2770 system with a 100 card/minute reader and a 1053 printer. The card reader is attended by an operator who collects the cards from the different boxes every two minutes and loads them on the reader. A card reader was preferred to a badge reader for several reasons: - the bad experience with badge readers in 1964 - the possibility of forgetting or losing a badge - the possibility of introducing the badge wrongly in the reader, which causes the badge not to be read - the possibility of introducing objects which can cause break-ups or malfunctions of the reader - the time necessary to introduce the badge and to wait until it is liberated is longer than to slip a card in a box, and this could cause jams at the door. The disavantages of using cards are: - the cards must be placed in racks before every shift and must be sorted. - an operator is needed to put the cards in the reader. - a delay of up to two minutes can occur between the time a card is in the box and the time it is read. The card reader and 1053 printer are linked to the 3705 controller by a 4800 bauds BSC line via two 3978 modems. At the supervisors' room: 10 x terminals with display and keyboards, 3277 mod. 2 (24 lines of 80 characters) 2 printers 3286 at 66 characters/second. The displays and printers are connected to the 3271 control unit which is linked to the 3705 controlled by a 4800 bauds BSC line via two 3978 modems. 4. PROGRAMMING AND DATA As only the man-number punched in the cards is communicated to the computer, at the time of making up the teams, a large amount of information must be known by the computer in advance. These data are stored in data bases managed by the IMS system. 4.1. Fixed Data 4.1.1. PersonnelD.B. which contains all
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4.3.1. Microplan
the necessary information on every man. 4.1.2. Work-place D.B. In this data base all work-places of a shift are regrouped per division and all data concerning these work-places are stored. For every work-place the following informations are stored: the different functions planned for the work-place with the total number of persons per function. 4.1.3. Functions D.B. All functions and second tasks are stored in this D.B. with an abbreviated name, full description, and "macro" group to which they belong. 4.1.4. Team Allocation and Work Distribution D.B. The two segments of this data base show the personnel present for a given day. They are kept for two working days, so that it is possible to enquire about any shift of the previous day. - the work distribution segment contains the screen lay-out: it shows how many workers should have been present and how many actually were, at work distribution time. It is a working data base which enables to directly place a man-number in a work place at a given function in the first free zone. All modifications made at the time of team and work allocation are stored in this segment. 4.2. Reading and Processing of the Cards for Team Allocation The cards are read by the reader located at the colliery entrance. The computer controls that every man-number read exists in the personnel data base. If it does not, a message is printed on the 1053 printer. Data and hour of reading are stored. For every man, from the work place and function mentioned in the personnel data base, the computer seeks in the work distribution segment the exact zone where the man must be recorded in the team allocation segment and enters his number at the corresponding function.
The microplan screen shows how the team of a given work-place should be made up. This framework plan can be modified for a given shift, according to circumstances. If it has already been adapted this is shown on the screen. From the microplan the user can call the team make-up option. 4.3.2. Team make-up This screen shows the workers who at the time of the call of this option, are already present for this work-place at the colliery. From there on the operator can either call back the same option (to update arrivals) or choose one of the following operation. 4.3.2.1. Change the team make-up: move one man-number from one function to another, or to another work-place. 4.3.2.2. Enter a man-number at the display terminal, for example if the worker has not taken his card or in case of double shift. The computer controls the validity and presence of this man-number. 4.3.2.3. To globally move a team to another work-place for this shift, excepting the man-numbers entered by the user. 4.3.2.4. Closing up the team make-up. This is possible only 5 minutes before the hour fixed for closing up for the work-place considered. Every work-place has its own closing hour. After closing, this team can be looked at only in the archives of the data base. Closing up means that, after entering the number of mine cars he hopes to produce during the shift, the supervisor receives the printed list of all personnel present at the colliery, allocated to his team, per function, with all modifications made during the make-up of the team of his work-place. All personnel arriving after the closing hour is also listed with the mention "too late". 4.3.3. OK List This list can be asked directly from any screen image. The result is identical to the list printed at the closing of a work-place. 4.3.4. List of Presences at Second Task This screen picture shows the man-numbers of all those present at a given second task. 4.3.5. List of Presences at a Division
If the man's card is read later than the closing hour for his work-place he is entered in the work distribution segment with the mention "Late". 4.3. Work Allocation by the User. The user can either allocate work or inquire upon the archives of a given shift. This choice is offered on a special screen image. From the selection screen the user can choose any of the following options: - the microplan - team make-up - OK list - list of those present at second task - list of those present at the division
This screen picture shows, sorted by "macro" group, the total numbers of personnel present for a given division. This information helps management to decide the number of work-places to allocate or whether to stop one given work-place because of lack of personnel or not. 4.4. Archives Enquiries The following informations covering
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for every function. Attendance recording is kept for two weeks in the team make-up data base. 4.7.3. List of Workers Present Without a Card or Vice Versa. At every shift a comparison is made between the presence cards (given at the lamp-room) and the entrance cards (at the gate). A list is produced showing: - personnel with an entrance card but absent (did not go to the lamp-room) - personnel without an entrance card but present - warning notice for every man without an entrance card.
the last 3 shifts can be consulted: team make-up - OK Lists - second tasks presences - division presences. The situation at the closing for the workplace or at the end of the shift is thus displayed. No modifications can be made at this stage. 4.5. Lists Several lists can be obtained by selection from a screen displaying the list of options (VL~. 4.5.1. Colliery Forecasts This list shows all personnel present (including those too late) for a given shift, per pit, per working place. It also contains the expected production and the calculated productivity per man, globally and per work-place. 4.5.2. List of Personnel per Work-Place
5. CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE OF TYPICAL TEAM MAKE-UP AND WORK ALLOCATION When the workers arrive at the gate of the colliery each one takes a punched card. The cards are sorted out by man-number in racks. Each worker slips his card into an appropriate box. An operator empties the box, puts the cards into a card reader and the data punched in them is sent to the computer where it is available for the supervisor to ask upon. The supervisor of a given work-place chooses a display terminal among those available in the supervisors' room. He pushes the CLEAR button then enters VB which are the initials of VOORBEZETTING (preparation of teams). These two letters are the only procedure which the supervisor must know by heart. The computer answers by displaying the starting list of options on the screen. All instructions during the procedure are always displayed on the screen and the supervisors have only to read to know what to do to call up any program. Once the first list of options is displayed the supervisor calls his microplan by keying in a 1, his work-place number, and the shift number. The computer displays back the standard team of this workplace with all planned function and the number of workers for every function. When, for any reason, the micro-plan is not suited to the present situation he can change it. For example if the supervisor has been called from underground and been told that the bottom gate should not be worked in,he modifies his micro-plan by cancelling all workers planned for this function. When the micro-plan is adapted to the present situation of this particular shift, the supervisor asks for the personnel available to him at this time by keying-in a 4. The computer then displays the man-numbers of the workers already present for every function in the adapted plan. The supervisor thus has an overall view of the personnel of his work-place.
This list shows the personnel entered per work-place, per function, with an indication of normal or extra shift. It can be obtained per shift or for all shifts together. 4.6. Information Screens One can consult several data bases through a screen of available options (VI) . For example: Personnel Data Base. This screen gives all available data on one man-number. It is divided into 3 parts: - field data: man-number, name, address, nationality, etc. - work organization at the pit: all data concerning the work allocation of a given man-number such as function and work-place. - work distribution: last date at which the man has worked, his last work-place, last function, hour at which he entered the colliery, etc. 4.7. Control Lists A strong emphasis has been put on the control lists. 4.7.1. List of Mistakes of Team Preparation. Every day a list of mistakes per shift is produced: - personnel arrived late - work-places where work has been distributed but where no team make-up was prepared in advance. - personnel with a function which is not planned for the work-place they are allocated to - personnel present without a file. 4.7.2. Comparison Between Work Distribution and Attendance Recording.
If for any function there are too many workers, a plus is placed before the mannumber of all those in excess.
A control is made daily for every workplace and every function of the' personnel allocated to a team and actually recorded
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If the number of workers is too small, the missing ones are replaced by lines of minus signs. If the number of zones reserved for a function is too small to receive all workers present the supervisor can call easily "next page" by pushing on the PA 1 function key. The lay-out of every "page" is identical to that of the micro-plan itself. To update the screen with the latest arrivals the supervisor keys- in a B. To modify the allocation of workers, to another function, or to another work-place, he keys in a W. The man-numbers of workers coming from another work-place are displayed with double-brillance. At the hour of closing his work-place, when he has made all changes possible according to the personnel actually present, the supervisor can see on the screen the image of all the personnel with whom he now will go underground and try to achieve his production objectives. Based on the number present the supervisor makes this forecast. He keys-in 5 to aks for the OK list, the question "what is your forecast production of mine cars ?" is displayed on the screen. The supervisor keys-in his forecast and the team make-up and work distribution list is automatically printed on one of the printers in the supervisors' room. With this list the supervisor goes then to the work distribution room. The list is divided in two sections: - the first one lists all man-numbers of those present, sorted out by function, the total number per function and the total number of workers allocated to a production task, that is at the face, for the work-place; - the second one shows all changes made either to the microplan or to the work allocations, and mentions separately all workers who must be warned that they have changed function, who must move to another work-place, and who come another work-place. The actual work distribution task consists only in warning the people who have been moved on the screens. Once this physical distribution is made the supervisor goes to the engineer in charge to confirm his production forecast. The engineer, with the team make-up list, wants to control the validity of this forecast. Besides the programs described previously there are several others which concern the engineers rather than the supervisor: VI programs: give data on a given worker VL programs: give different lists VM programs: allow the creation of microplans VF programs: allow the creation or updating of functions VP programs: allow to create or cancel or modify a personnel record.
The advantages of this application are numerous and reach several levels in the company. We will look at 3 of them only: supervisors, engineers, mine manager. 6.1. For the supervisors the main advantages are: - a faster availability of information on personnel present which increases the time available to prepare the work allocation, - in addition to the presence the computer also shows the usual function and qualifications of those present which results in: the possibility to utilize productive workers optimally a better knowledge of one's personnel a better utilization of the specific qualities of every body - through the micro-plan the supervisor is informed of the ideal team which his manager wants to see implemented - by adapting this micro-plan the supervisor remains responsible of adapting the ideal plan to the actual needs of his shift. By entering these modifications immediately into the computer he frees his mind of the problem, the computer will remind him of them when required. - by comparing the personnel present with the planned team make-up the computer displays and makes evident all functions where a problem exists and the supervisor must intervene. The supervisor does not overlook any of these anomalies even those concerning secondary tasks which were much neglected before. - every modification brought to the team make-up is immediately displayed. - when the supervisor is satisfied with the team realized he gives the OK signal and the computer prints out a clear list recalling all decisions made during the preparation of the work distribution; this list is, by the amount of details it contains, a part of the report the supervisor must make to his engineer. - the work distribution itself is made "by exception". Only those men moved must be given notice. The others do not come to the attention of the supervisor. In fact the system improves the team makeup and work allocation in three ways: - it enables to start earlier by informing earlier - it enables to continue later by reducing the time necessary to issue instruc tions. - it improves the efficiency of the supervisors by having them work in successive steps. Besides these direct and major advantages for the supervisor there are some indirect ones: - the guarantee that a man temporarily transferred to another work-place will be automatically returned at the end of the period, therefore a greater mobility of personnel between work-places.
6. ADVANTAGES OF THE TEAM AND WORK ALLOCA-
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- in the first moments of work allocation he can consult the number present per division and per group of functions; this shows the sort of decisions to take to make-up all teams for this shift, for example to close down certain work-places. - the possibility to consult the team make-ups of the previous shifts can bring valuable additional information. - the possibility to control the presence of personnel having other functions than their normal tasks (loader of personnel, bus manager, ... ) exists. 6.2. For the engineers there are also many advantages: - each engineer must establish in advance his personnel requirements, and for every worker fix his function and qualification; this results for each work-place in a well studied plan and in a better knowledge of the personnel. - the control of the supervisors is easy for the present shift as well as for the two previous shifts. - the engineers have a written support to help them prepare with the supervisors the shift report which will be more constructive. - the engineer is informed of the production the supervisor commits himself to, in function of the number of productive manpower, and he can control it. - the direct access to the data bases is a source of immediate information which helps him in the organization of tasks and, avoiding a lot of administration delays, saves his time. - the comparison between work allocation and attendance recording shows the defects of the organization. - the engineer has all the means necessary to actually manage his personnel, which is of foremost importance in the coal mining industry.
better geological conditions, new type of props, new work organization, etc ... It is nevertheless realistic to admit that the new system allows the use of one more productive worker per shift, which represents 20 mine cars of coal. This largely justifies the system. The best proof of the interest of the system is that the directors of all other pits in our Company have asked to have the same system available for their own use, after having studied the system at Zolder. The system has been implemented at the Waterschei pit in December 1974, at the Winterslag pit in Juni 1975, it has been operational at Beringen since July 1975 and at Eisden since December 1975.
6.3. For the management of the mine one can list the following advantages: - an immediate control of the production and productivity forecasted. - an immediate control of the utilization and distribution of productive personnel. - the possibility to judge the relative needs in manpower for any function in the light actual data on team make-ups, in order to fix hiring and training policies. - before the descent of the personnel, a complete manpower allocation across the different groups of activities. What do all these advantages represent in terms of economic justification of the system ? Even though, when starting the application at Zolder, a measurable productivity increase occured, it would be unrealistic to attribute all of this improvement to the preparation of team make-up and work distribution alone as so many factors can influence production one way or another:
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