Plans give the organisation its objectives and set up the best procedure for reaching them. Plans are important because they become the guide by which:
- The organisation obtains and commits the resources required to achieve its objectives.
- Employees of the organisation conduct their tasks or activities.
- The organisation’s progress towards its goals or objectives is monitored.
The Need for Planning
Planning leads to the other elements in that it is the first step taken before any work or activity takes place. Poor planning leads to ineffective leadership, disorganisation, and difficulty in controlling. Inefficiencies in any of these elements increase costs to the company, reduce productivity and limit profitability, which affects the competitiveness of the business enterprise. It is said, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!”
The planning process involves determining the company’s objectives, i.e., what is the goal of the company for the long term, for the year or month or day and what is required to achieve those goals and how best we can utilise our resources to maximize output and minimise costs to improve the profitability of the business.
A. Plan Types:
Duration of Plans
a) Long-term
- Strategic plans.
- Mission (goals).
- Objectives.
b) Medium-term
- Operational plans.
c) Short-term
- Work objectives.
- Budget plans.
- Product plans.
- Marketing plans.
- Recruitment plans.
B. Planning has three different levels or horizons:
These levels are explained as follows:
- Strategic Planning – looking at the long-term goals and objectives of the business and usually carried out by top management or the business owners. The horizon can be one to five years and sometimes longer.
- Tactical Planning – shorter planning horizons and usually carried out by middle management or the Senior Forester levels in our industry. In forestry operations, it is often the year plan or Annual Plan of Operations.
- Operational Planning – the shortest planning horizon and includes daily weekly and monthly plans. Operational planning is the area where the Supervisor plays a big role and is an area where there is big leverage in improving productivity and reducing costs to the business.
Supervisor Planning – Operational
Forestry operations are usually geographically spread over many different sites, with varying terrain, road types, tree species, tree sizes, and weather conditions and involve a lot of movement of people, machines, fuels and the final product – timber logs. Resources must be matched and balanced with the prevalent conditions and product types and to be done properly, planning is critical.
The objective is to prevent wasting time and effort and ensure that standing time and bottlenecks are reduced and that we maximise the available time for work. Examples of poor planning are double trips by vehicles because something or someone was left behind at the office, getting to the work site and felling cannot commence because there is no area to fall in, people waiting for the Supervisor to count out their task for the day, or machines standing because their fuel has run out. These examples are typical and happen daily at a huge cost to the business.
As a first-level supervisor, led by example. Be the first person at the assembly point or office, to determine the attendance levels in your teams and be able to address operational issues that may arise and plan accordingly. Communication between the Forester or Foreman, transport drivers and team members are essential at this stage to determine if there are any short-term operational changes. Communicate with fellow supervisors if there are absentees in the team and additional labour resources are required at short notice, to fill in vacant positions.
Planning and organising before the shift start are critical to getting labour and equipment to the site on time and at the right place and is preferable that this planning element be done on the previous afternoon to prevent delays in the early morning. Ensure that all personnel are informed of the transport plan, ensure that personal protective equipment is available and worn and that the correct tools and equipment, fuels and oils and necessary spares (chainsaws, guide bars, chains, and so forth) are available and securely loaded onto transport vehicles.
Check that demarcation equipment is operational and complete before it is loaded on the vehicle. (Fire extinguishers, 1st aid kits, rakes and hoes, freshwater). Ensure that the daily production, safety, quality and compartment planning documents and time books are available for infield use. Allocate sufficient time daily, at the worksite, before the start of the shift, to communicate and re-enforce safety policies and procedures, and give feedback on the previous day’s production and the plan for the current shift requirements.
PPE and equipment checklists should be completed at this time since all team members generally are assembled in one area at the start of the shift. Planning the current shift work layout and task allocation should be done on the previous afternoon, to ensure that workers are not delayed at the start of the shift unnecessarily. Plan the layout to minimize the movement of people and machines from one setting to another, maintain the critical safety zones, facilitate timber extraction and transport and of importance, allow the Supervisor to adequately control the people under his watch. Utilize the compartment plan map as much as possible and use it as a living document – draw and write notes on the map as an aid.
Supervisors should use task sheets, work-study, and short interval control data to assist in the planning elements of the job to anticipate planned output against actuals, which would facilitate planning for subsequent shifts and resource allocation.
B. Supervisor Planning – Weekly:
The weekly planning function will revolve primarily around the harvesting order i.e., tons required per market for the week and where those tons will be prepared i.e., in which compartment or area within a compartment the trees will be felled and prepared. Other plans will revolve around the scheduled vehicle or machine maintenance, production and safety meetings for the week and labour requirements and placing for the week’s production. These plans will be discussed with the Forester or Foreman and it will be expected that the Supervisor actions the required activities.
Compartment plans or assessments – ensure that the compartment plans are available and up-to-date and all criteria on the compartment plan as drawn up, and correspond to the actual ‘on-the-ground’ conditions in the current compartments being felled. Of importance is the positioning of the Safety Demarcation zones, rack layout and felling direction, brushwood lines and plans regarding hazardous or sensitive conditions and areas e.g., roads, landings and skid trails, Sensitive Management Zones, power lines and research plots. Ensure that new compartments to be felled during the week have been cruised and planned and approval for felling has been obtained and signed on before felling commences. It is important that the compartment has been identified, the boundaries determined, species noted, the market identified and the expected start date is known.
Set aside time during the week to sample tree sizes either before felling commences or during the first two days following felling to accurately determine average tons/m³ per tree for task determination and production reports. The Supervisor must be involved in this data collection phase as he or she will be responsible for task allocation and counting and the filling in and submitting of the daily production reports. The onus rests on the Supervisor to ensure that the actual tons as reported and calculated correspond to the planned tons on the completion of the compartment.
Production plans must be available or known and the supervisor must be able to determine the tons required for the week and per day per operation and team. Allocation of people and machines will be based on the production requirements as planned and the prevailing conditions influencing task determination. Standard tasking sheets should be available to the supervisor to facilitate the setting of daily tasks per job category. Safety – safety themes, toolbox talk, planned job observation and WSWP schedules must be known per job category and the supervisor is to ensure that these are available at the start of the week. Documentation or administration – harvesting safety inspection sheets, chainsaw operator daily checklists, vehicle daily checklists and production sheet input forms for the week, should be available at the start of the week and carried by the Supervisor infield.
Maintenance schedules for machines are to be known and the estimated days or hours in which the vehicles are unavailable to work must be factored into the weekly plan. Contingency plans for resources affected by planned maintenance or breakdowns must be made to ensure their full utilisation.
D. Planning Tools required by the Supervisor:
1. Diary.
2. Calculator.
3. Task sheets.
4. Compartment plans or maps.
5. Dub tape.
6. Tape measure (10 m and 3 m).
7. Cell phone or radio.
8. Checklists – safety, quality (market specifications).
9. Production target versus actual data (weekly or daily).
E. General Requirements of Planning:
- The plan must be directed at well-defined objectives.
- Individual plans must be well thought through.
- Planning must be related to both quantity and quality of output, labour, machines, and so forth.
- You must be able to adapt a plan to changing circumstances, such as technology, economics (price), attitudes (of consumers), competition and policies (government).
- An alternative plan should be available should it be necessary to abandon the original plan.
How to Plan
There are various factors in planning:
Human factor
If we know why people do what they do, we can plan accordingly. In this case, we will make a careful study of motivation. Therefore, we must observe our subordinates and get to know them thoroughly before we can start our planning.
Objectives
The establishment of objectives is also a type of planning at the First Line Manager level, daily objectives have been determined by the manager. A First Line Manager’s daily objective is the daily unit schedule, which determines the number of units to be produced or serviced, or which must pass through a certain section. The First Line Manager must, therefore, plan his day for his section to meet this objective. To meet the daily objective, the First Line Manager must divide his day up into hours.
What may happen in a traditional objective setting is set out below:
Traditional objective setting.
Planning Guidelines
Actions:
- List actions and, if appropriate, determine.
- The sequence in which they must be carried out.
- Their relationship with one another.
Schedule:
- Determine when each action must be completed.
- List or display specific dates or periods during which work, goal, project, or activity will progress.
Resource Allocation:
- If appropriate, determine:
- Who is available (and able) to do the work?
- How much money is budgeted?
- How long the work will take?
- What other resources are required?
Performance Criteria:
- Identify non-negotiable parameters for the outcome of the work or the method of carrying it out.
- What could go wrong?
- What new opportunities could arise?
- Forecast. Look ahead and see what needs to be done.
- Objective. State what needs to be done, when, where, and so forth.
- Programme. List steps that need to be followed to achieve objectives.
- Schedule. Put in time for each step..
- Budget. Allocate resources.
| Planning may be defined as thinking through a course of action or a series of activities before acting. |
Formalised planning became very popular in the 1960s, and, for the most part, it still is today! It makes sense to establish some direction. After all, as the Cheshire Cat said to Alice in the Alice in Wonderland story as she stood at the fork of the road, “If you don’t know where you want to go, any road will take you there”. Recently, critics have begun challenging some of the basic assumptions underlying planning. Some management experts believe that plans may create rigidity. Formal planning efforts can lock organisational members into specific goals to be achieved within specific timetables. When these objectives are set, assumptions may have been made that the “world” won’t change during the period the objectives cover. That may be a faulty assumption. Nevertheless, rather than remaining flexible – and possibly scrapping the plan – some First Line Managers may continue to do things required to achieve the originally set objectives. Other experts feel that formal plans can’t replace intuition and creativity.
Normal planning efforts typically follow a specific methodology – making it a routine event. That can spell disaster for an organisation. For instance, the rapid rise of Apple Computer Inc. In the late 1970s throughout the later 1980’s was attributed, in part, to the creativity and anti-corporate attitude of its co-founder, Steve Jobs. However, as the company grew, Jobs felt a need for more formalised management – something he was uncomfortable with. He hired a CEO (Chief Executive Officer), who ultimately ousted Jobs from his own company. With Jobs’ departure came increased organisational formality – the very thing Jobs despised so much because it hampered creativity. By 1996, this one-timer leader of its industry had lost much of its creativity and was struggling for survival.
Finally, there is a perception that while formal planning may re-enforce; it may also lead to failure. We have been taught that success breeds success. That is been an American “tradition” after all, if it is not broken don’t fix it. Right? Well, maybe not! Success may, in fact, breed failure in a changing world of work. It’s tough to discard successful plans – leaving the comfort of what works for the anxiety of the unknown. Formal plans may provide a false sense of security, generating more confidence than is warranted. Consequently, First Line Managers often won’t deliberately face that unknown until forced to do so by changes in the environment, unfortunately, by then; it may be too late!
Case Study: Using Plans at Sir Speedy Printing Services
Barry Williams has worked for Sir Speedy for five years. He now supervises five full-time employees and as many as 20 part-time employees who work from 2 – 15 hours a week. Sir Speedy is planning a promotion to bring more customers into the store during August, typically their slowest month of the year. The store will offer copying services at half price, 20% off on all colour copying and business card printing and 10% off on customer printing on speciality paper or card stock. To promote the use of several of their computer graphics and desktop applications the store will give 30 minutes of free time to customers who purchase 30 minutes of desktop computer time.
The August promotion will also focus on creative ways to use colour copiers and customised computer desktop applications. Barry plans to have his employees give short creative demonstrations of colour applications and software use. He decides that seven-minute demonstrations repeated every 15 minutes will be the best way to interest customers entering the store. With this schedule, Barry can run three different colour applications each day during his four-day promotion. He will also have eight different software application demonstrations for two hours. In addition, there are two touchscreen computers with five minutes of general product videos from Sir Speedy that he can set up strategic locations for customers to access at any time.
Seven of his part-time employees have been trained on the various applications, however, their schedules vary. Five of these part-time employees work 15 hours a week. The store’s busiest hours are 11h00 to 13h00, 16h00 to 18h00 and 19h30 to 20h30. Barry thinks he will need at least three people to give demonstrations during this peak time. Scheduling his employees to cover the demonstrations is a challenge. Barry knows that he will need the flexibility of availability, but he also knows that it would not be good to have the same person give more than 3 – 4 of the eight different software demonstrations. Also, he will need employees for store coverage.