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Project Grade 12 Careers & CTE

Standen Ford Water Reclamation: Build the Shift Staffing Plan

A four-session grade 12 careers project scheduling round-the-clock licensed coverage for a fictional reclamation plant within staffing and labor cost limits.

Objectives

  1. Students will express round-the-clock coverage requirements as inequalities and test schedules against them.
  2. Students will build a cross-training matrix that keeps a plant covered when a single operator is absent.
  3. Students will compare the marginal cost of overtime with the marginal cost of hiring.
  4. Students will write a staffing recommendation to a plant superintendent supported by their own figures.

Vocabulary

Key words: shift rotation, relief factor, license class, cross-training matrix, overtime premium, operator in charge

Teacher overview

Students spend four sessions acting as the operations scheduler for a fictional water reclamation facility that must be staffed by a licensed operator every hour of the year. The driving question is how many people it actually takes to keep one seat filled continuously, and what that answer costs. Teams deliver a four-week shift schedule, a cross-training matrix, a labor cost estimate, and a memo to the plant superintendent. Nearly every team makes the same first mistake: they staff three eight-hour shifts with three operators and declare the plant covered, forgetting that a week has 168 hours while a full-time schedule has 40. Let teams discover this in session 1 rather than warning them, because the correction is the central lesson of the project. A second limit is built into the roster: with only three Class III operators, constraint 2 cannot be met during any Class III absence, because two operators capped at 60 hours cover at most 120 of the week's 168 hours. Strong teams should find this during the session 3 absence test and recommend a Class III hire.

Standen Ford Water Reclamation: Build the Shift Staffing Plan — Grade 12 Careers & CTE
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Project Brief

Driving question: How should the fictional Standen Ford Water Reclamation Facility schedule its operators so that the plant is never without licensed coverage, and what is the cheapest viable way to do it?

The client. Standen Ford is a fictional facility treating about 8.5 MGD for a service area of 63,000 people. It runs continuously. The fictional state rule that governs it requires an operator holding a Class III license or higher to be on site at all times, and requires that the operator in charge of each shift be named in the daily log.

The staff you have. The fictional roster holds nine licensed operators and two operators in training: three Class III, four Class II, two Class I, and the two trainees, who may work any shift but may not be the licensed operator in charge. Every operator works a 40-hour standard week and is paid a premium of one and one-half times the hourly rate for hours beyond 40. Each operator receives four weeks of annual leave and five training days a year. The roster does not include wage rates, so each team adopts an hourly rate for each license class from a published wage source or a posted job listing in its own region, records that rate as a stated assumption, and uses it consistently.

Constraints your plan must satisfy.

  1. One licensed operator post is staffed every hour of every day, which is 168 hours in each week.
  2. A Class III or higher operator is on site at all times, and one operator is named in charge on every shift.
  3. No operator is scheduled more than 12 hours in a day or more than 60 hours in a week.
  4. Every operator receives at least two consecutive days off in each seven-day period.
  5. The schedule keeps working when any one operator is absent for two consecutive weeks.
  6. Total fiscal year operations labor stays within the fictional cap of $1,350,000, including the overtime premium.
  7. The cross-training matrix covers at least six plant processes, and at least two people are qualified on each one.

Deliverable. A staffing packet containing a four-week shift schedule grid, a written coverage proof showing the schedule satisfies constraints 1 through 5, a cross-training matrix, a labor cost table, and a two-page memo recommending either the schedule as drawn or a specific hire. The packet goes to a panel acting as the fictional plant superintendent and the human resources director.

Milestones

  1. Session 1, constraints and coverage arithmetic. Write each of the seven constraints as an inequality using named variables, then calculate how many full-time equivalent operators one continuously staffed post requires before leave and training are counted. Output: the written constraint list and the coverage calculation, with the arithmetic shown.
  2. Session 2, draft schedule. Build a four-week rotation on the shift grid that names an operator in charge for every shift and marks each person's days off. Test the draft against constraints 1 through 4 and record every violation you find and fix. Output: the draft grid and the violation log.
  3. Session 3, cross-training matrix and absence test. Build the matrix with at least six processes down one axis and the eleven fictional staff members across the other, marking who is qualified on each. Then remove your most heavily scheduled operator for two weeks and repair the schedule. Output: the matrix and the repaired two-week stretch.
  4. Session 4, cost estimate and memo. Calculate the fiscal year labor cost of your schedule, including the overtime premium, and compare it with the cost of adding one more Class III operator (or funding a Class II operator's upgrade to Class III). Output: the cost table, and the two-page memo recommending either the current schedule or the hire, with your comparison as the reason.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Rubric
Criterion Advanced Proficient Developing Emerging
Constraints as mathematics All seven constraints are written as inequalities with variables defined, and the team uses them to reject at least one draft schedule Most constraints are written as inequalities and used to check the schedule Constraints are restated in words rather than as inequalities Constraints are not represented mathematically
Coverage and licensing Every hour is covered, a Class III or higher is always on site, and an operator in charge is named on every shift Coverage is complete with one or two licensing gaps identified and corrected Coverage has gaps, or the license class requirement is applied inconsistently The schedule leaves the plant uncovered or unlicensed for long stretches
Cross-training matrix Six or more processes with at least two qualified people on each, and the matrix is used to repair the absence test Six processes covered with most having a backup Matrix lists processes without showing depth of coverage No usable matrix
Cost analysis Cost table is complete and accurate, the overtime premium is applied correctly, and the comparison with hiring is stated as a cost difference Cost table is complete with the overtime premium applied and a general comparison Cost table omits the overtime premium or major assumptions No cost estimate, or one unrelated to the schedule
Memo and recommendation Memo states a clear recommendation, supports it with the team's own figures, and acknowledges the strongest objection Memo states a recommendation supported by figures Memo states a preference with thin support No recommendation, or one contradicted by the team's own work

Differentiation

Support

Give these teams the coverage calculation already completed for one post at the fictional facility, along with a partially filled shift grid covering the first week, and reduce the cross-training matrix to four processes. Provide the cost table with the formulas in place so students enter hours and rates only, and allow the memo to be one page organized under supplied headings.

Extension

Ask advanced teams to add a second continuously staffed post at the fictional facility for the laboratory and maintenance functions, then rebuild the schedule and the cost estimate. They should also model what the plan looks like in five years if the three Class III operators retire, using the finding that roughly one-third of the water workforce becomes retirement-eligible within the decade as the reason to plan for it now.

ELL supports

Pre-teach shift, rotation, coverage, premium, and in charge with short definitions and a colored sample grid showing one week of three eight-hour shifts. Provide the constraint list with the mathematical form partly written, allow the violation log to be recorded in a checklist rather than in prose, and let students rehearse the memo's recommendation sentence with a partner before writing.

Extensions

Many utilities post their operator job descriptions with the shift rotation stated in the listing. Have students collect three such postings, identify the rotation each one describes, and write a paragraph on which schedule they would prefer to work and why. The postings connect the scheduling work in this project to the hours and days off the job actually involves.