In short
What this page covers
- Patterns you lay out once
- Roles on the line, not just a headcount
- The crew on the screen before it is on the floor
- Saturday offered to everybody at once
For manufacturing
Rota software for the factory floor, crew by crew
Lay out a two or three shift pattern that holds, see the line covered before the shift starts, and let the hours and the overtime count themselves. Free, for as many people and sites as you have.
Where the time goes
What actually goes wrong on a factory rota
These are the everyday situations that turn a rota into a source of mistakes, phone calls and needless cost.
01
A line that cannot run one person short
Most businesses run short and go slower. A line runs short and stops. One operator not turning in at six means the other eleven stand at their stations while somebody rings round, and the shift is behind before the first pallet is made.
02
The setter is on a rest day and nothing runs
Full crew on, changeover booked for ten. The only person who can set the machine for the next product is on the second of four days off, so twelve people are on full pay watching a line that is not making anything until somebody drives in.
03
A continental pattern nobody can read in Excel
Four on, four off, days rolling into nights, on a cycle that pays no attention to weeks. Excel thinks in seven day columns. So the pattern gets rebuilt by hand every month, and every month somebody turns up for a shift they were meant to be off, or does not turn up for one they were on.
04
Moving one person quietly breaks a crew
People come as crews. A shift, B shift, C shift, rotating together. Pull one operator across to cover a gap on Tuesday and you have not solved a problem, you have moved it: their own crew is now one short on Saturday, and nobody sees that until Saturday.
05
The shutdown planned in a different place from the rota
Maintenance need the line down and empty from midnight. Production have it booked to the last hour for an order that ships Friday. The two plans live in two different documents and meet for the first time on the night, usually in the corridor.
06
Overtime agreed on the floor and counted at month end
The order has to ship, so the crew stay two hours late on Wednesday and half of them come in on Saturday morning. It gets agreed by the line, written on a whiteboard, wiped off the whiteboard, and then rebuilt from memory when payroll asks what happened.
How InShift fixes it
A rota that copes with crews, patterns and a line that has to be complete to be worth switching on. Everything below is in the free account, with no cap on people or sites.
Solution 1
Patterns you lay out once
Two shift, three shift, continental, four on four off. Set the early, the late and the night as templates with their hours, the size of the crew each one needs and the roles that crew is made of, then lay the pattern across the weeks. A month of a rolling rota takes minutes instead of a morning of counting squares.
Solution 2
Roles on the line, not just a headcount
Set up the roles you actually run: machine operator, setter, maintenance, quality. Every shift shows which of them are filled, so a shift carrying a changeover and no setter looks wrong on your screen a fortnight out, when moving one rest day still fixes it.
Solution 3
The crew on the screen before it is on the floor
You can see the whole shift complete, or not complete, before you publish it. That is the difference between finding the gap while there is time to fill it and finding it at six in the morning with eleven people already stood at their stations.
Solution 4
Saturday offered to everybody at once
The order has to ship Friday: post the Saturday as an open shift and every operator who could work it gets it on their phone at the same moment. First one to take it has it, you tap approve. Swaps work the same way, and you approve them looking at the rota rather than from memory.
Solution 5
Maintenance and production on the same rota
The planned window and the shutdown week sit on the same weeks as the crews who have to work around them. One rota, both teams on it, the argument had a fortnight early on a screen instead of at midnight in the corridor.
Solution 6
Hours, nights and overtime counted as they are worked
The totals build as the rota is worked, at each person's own hourly rate, and export to Excel for payroll. The two hours the crew stayed late on Wednesday and the Saturday morning are in the total because they went on the rota, not on a whiteboard that got wiped.
A day on the rota in a factory
One line on a three shift pattern, with a changeover in the morning and a planned maintenance window overnight. Note that every crew carries a setter, and that maintenance is on the same rota as production rather than in a separate plan.
| Time | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 06:00-14:00 | Shift manager | Takes the line from nights, runs the changeover at ten |
| 06:00-14:00 | Machine operators x8 | A crew, not eight individuals: the line does not run one short |
| 06:00-14:00 | Setter | On for the changeover: the reason it takes forty minutes and not a shift |
| 14:00-22:00 | Machine operators x8 | B crew picks the line up mid-run, no changeover on the late |
| 14:00-22:00 | Quality inspector | Covers the late through to the last pallet into despatch |
| 22:00-06:00 | Maintenance x2 | Planned window: line down from midnight, running again for the early |
Try it without an account
Three free tools that need no sign-up and no email. Build a rota or add up hours right now, and move to an account when the team has to see it.
Frequently asked questions
How many operators do I need to run a line around the clock?▾
Start from the hours, not the people. Round the clock is 168 hours a week for every single position on the line. One full time person covers about 37.5 of them, so each position needs roughly four and a half people before anybody is off sick or away, which is why sites running 24/7 tend to end up with five crews rather than four. Multiply that by the number of positions the line needs to run at all. Put your own pattern and hours into the rota and you will see your own number rather than this one.
Can it handle a continental or four on four off pattern?▾
Yes. You build your shifts once as templates and lay them across the weeks in whatever cycle you run, so the pattern rolls past the end of the month without being rebuilt by hand. Crews on rotation see their own days on their phones, months ahead, which stops the two annual arguments about who was meant to be on which block.
How does the crew see the rota?▾
They install the InShift app on their phone from the App Store or Google Play and enter a six digit code you give them. That is the whole setup, no work email address and no password to forget, which matters when most of the floor has never had a company login. Change the rota and they get a push notification, so nobody is working from the version that was printed on Friday.
What happens when an operator does not turn in at six?▾
Post the shift as an open shift and everyone who could work it is asked at once, rather than one at a time down a contact list. And because each shift shows the roles you set up, you can see straight away whether you are one operator light or missing the only setter on the crew, which is a different problem with a different phone call.
Does it work out nights and overtime?▾
It adds the hours up as the rota is worked, multiplies them by each person's hourly rate, and exports the timesheet to Excel for any period. A night and a Saturday morning are hours on the rota like any other, so they are in the total while the month is still open rather than rebuilt from memory after it closes. Rates sit on the person, so an operator moved to another site is counted at their own.
Is it actually free, or free until it is not?▾
Free. Every feature, every crew, as many sites as you like, no card and no trial clock ticking. There is no billing in the product at all. Put three shifts and the maintenance team on it and it costs what one line costs, which is nothing.