For manufacturing

Factory rota software: crews on earlies, lates and nights, and a line that runs full

A production line is staffed as a crew: eight operators, a setter and a team leader, and one person short means the line runs slow or stops. InShift keeps every crew on one rota by department and shift, carries the rotation forward with “Copy last week”, offers the Saturday to the whole floor at once, and turns the hours, the nights and the overtime into payroll without a spreadsheet.

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Crews rotate, the line must not stop, and the rota has to know both

A factory on two shifts runs an early from six and a late from two; a factory on three adds a night from ten and keeps the line going around the clock. People come as crews. A crew, B crew and C crew rotate through the three shifts a week at a time, so nobody lives on nights and everybody knows where they are in the cycle. The line needs the whole crew to run: operators on every station, a setter for the changeover at ten, a quality inspector before the pallets go to despatch. Maintenance has its own window on the same line, usually a night early in the week, and the two plans have to meet on one rota rather than in the corridor at midnight.

The rota most factories run is a spreadsheet with a tab per week, printed on Friday and corrected in pen by Tuesday. Its failures repeat every month. The night from 22:00 to 06:00 is split across two dates and the hours come out wrong. An operator swaps a Saturday with a colleague at the smoking shelter, and the team leader learns about it at six in the morning. The overtime agreed on the floor to ship Friday’s order is written on a whiteboard, wiped, and rebuilt from memory when payroll asks.

Below is how a factory of sixty on three shifts looks in InShift: every person with the positions they are trained for, the rotation cycle as a table, the month with every crew on it, and the shift manager on the floor with the planner in their pocket.

Positions and cover

Every operator with the positions they can cover, so the setter is never a surprise

A person is added with a “Primary position” and, under “Add positions for cover”, the other positions they are trained for: an operator who can set the machine, a team leader who can run quality. Swaps and open shifts are matched on all of a person’s positions, so when the setter on A crew asks for Thursday off, the operators trained as setters are the ones offered the shift. The same card holds the “Start date” for tenure, the “Vacation days per year”, and a “Not scheduled” switch for people who need the panel without ever being on the line.

  • “Primary position” plus “Add positions for cover”: operator, setter, forklift, quality
  • “Start date” drives tenure on the card; “Vacation days per year” or the company default
  • “Not scheduled” for the plant manager and the office: absent from the planner, never offered a shift
  • “Add multiple” pastes a whole crew with a position; “Invite team” gives the QR code for the noticeboard
The admin panel screen by screen

The rotation cycle of three crews on a three shift line

Three weeks, three crews, every shift covered every week. The team leader moves each crew one shift on with “Copy last week”, and the cycle repeats.

CrewWeek 1Week 2Week 3
A crewEarlyLateNight
B crewLateNightEarly
C crewNightEarlyLate
FittersTue nightTue nightTue night
QualityDayDayDay

Early 06:00–14:00, Late 14:00–22:00, Night 22:00–06:00; quality works a “Day 08:00–16:00” across the changeover, and the maintenance fitters have the line on Tuesday night. A crew is eight operators, a setter and a team leader: sixty people on the rota with maintenance, quality and the office. Week 4 is week 1 again. The night is entered as 22:00–06:00 and counts as one shift on the date it starts.

The month

The whole cycle on one screen: every crew, every week, hours per person

The “Month” view of the planner lays the cycle out as it will be worked: a letter per shift in each person’s row, the hours and the money next to the name, the shift count per person at the end of the row. Building it is the same three moves every week: “Copy last week” brings the crews forward as drafts, the team leader moves each crew one shift on, “Publish” sends it to every phone. The maintenance window and the Saturday sit in the same grid, so production and engineering plan the shutdown from one screen.

  • “Week”, “Month”, “Year” and “List” views; the month shows a letter per shift and the hours per person
  • “Copy last week” carries the whole week forward as drafts nobody sees until “Publish”
  • Departments fold away: operations, maintenance, quality, the office
  • “Print” for the noticeboard by the line, “Download Excel” for the agency and the accountant

On the floor

The shift manager fills the gap from the phone, and the crew sees it before the shift

The planner is in the manager’s app as well as in the browser. The shift manager on the floor opens the location, sees the week by shift type with the people on each, puts the operator who agreed to cover Thursday on it with “Add”, and the shift stays a draft only they can see until they press “Publish”. Every operator gets the change as a push notification, sees “Who else is working” on their shift, and their hours on “Stats”.

  • The location’s week by shift type, with “Add” on every empty slot
  • “Only you can see drafts” until “Publish”, then a push to every phone on the crew
  • “Substitute” and “Open shifts” for the crew; the manager decides in “Requests” from the same phone
  • “Quiet hours” so the night crew’s phones stay silent in the morning
The app screen by screen

Moving a factory onto InShift

An afternoon for a site of sixty, the crews joining included.

  1. 1

    Sign up and the site

    Email or Google. The plant is a location; a second unit or a site across town with its own crews is a second location.

  2. 2

    Departments, positions, shift types

    Operations, maintenance, quality, office. Positions: operator, setter, team leader, forklift, inspector. Shift types “Early 06:00–14:00”, “Late 14:00–22:00”, “Night 22:00–06:00”, and a “Saturday 06:00–12:00” for the overtime.

  3. 3

    The crews, the cover, the rates

    “Add multiple” pastes each crew with its position; the setters get “Add positions for cover”; hourly rates on the “Pay” tab; “Night hours” and “Over the daily norm” on “Premiums”. “Invite team” gives the QR code for the noticeboard.

  4. 4

    The first cycle and publish

    Week 1 crew by crew, then “Publish”. Weeks 2 and 3 are “Copy last week” with each crew moved one shift on. After that the cycle repeats itself.

Frequently asked questions

Can InShift run a continental or 4 on 4 off pattern?▾

Yes, as shifts on a rota rather than as a formula. Shift types can be twelve hours, “Day 06:00–18:00” and “Night 18:00–06:00”, the first cycle is built once, and “Copy last week” carries it forward. A 4 on 4 off pattern repeats every eight days, so it does not line up with the week: the “Month” view shows where each crew lands, and the 4 on 4 off calculator on this site shows which days are on and off from any first shift.

How are nights and overtime paid?▾

With the rules on the “Premiums” tab of “Payroll”. “Night hours” pays the hours inside the window you set with a premium, “Over the daily norm” pays the hours beyond the norm at a multiplier, “Flat overtime pay” adds a fixed amount for them instead, and “Holiday work” pays the bank holidays from your calendar at a multiplier. Every rule applies from a date, and “Payroll” shows night, holiday and overtime hours in their own columns.

Does the rota know that the line needs a setter on every shift?▾

It shows who is on each shift, in rows by department and in the colour of the shift type, so a crew without a setter is visible at a glance; there is no automatic minimum staffing check. The cover comes from people: an operator with the setter’s position under “Add positions for cover” is on the list when the setter’s shift is swapped or offered to the team.

How do the crews see the rota?▾

In the InShift app on iPhone and Android, after joining with the invite code and their own email. Each person sees their own shifts, “Who else is working”, their requests and their hours on “Stats”; the whole rota is for roles with “View rota” on the “Access rights” tab, so a team leader sees their site. People without the app get the printed week from the noticeboard.

Can maintenance and production be on the same rota?▾

Yes: they are departments of the same location, each with its own positions and shift types. The Tuesday night window is a maintenance shift on the same grid as C crew’s night, and the departments you are not looking at fold away. A contractor for the shutdown week is added like anyone else and dismissed from their card when it is over.

What does it cost for a factory of sixty?▾

Free for one location and up to 10 people. Beyond that it is a subscription per active person on the “Employees” list, with locations, payroll and the team app included. The numbers are on the pricing page.

Get the whole floor on one rota

Positions, shift types and the first cycle take an afternoon, and every crew sees the rota in the app the same day.

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