Kronos delivers super-efficient staff planning at FloraHolland site in Aalsmeer
The FloraHolland operation in Aalsmeer is an export auction operation that trades in a huge range of flowers and plants. Day in, day out exporters, wholesalers and florists come to buy and sell millions of flowers at the most attractive prices. And although a day at the flower auction may appear to pass quickly and smoothly, it requires a great deal of planning and organisation to ensure everything goes to plan. So Aalsmeer enlisted the assistance of Kronos, previously known as Captor, to deploy and monitor both its permanent and temporary staff as effectively as possible at all times of the day.
FloraHolland Aalsmeer: the world’s biggest trading centre
The Dutch flower auction, FloraHolland, is the international trading centre for flowers and plants. Every day sees 43.2 million flowers and 4.8 million plants change hands. With its six locations (Aalsmeer, Naaldwijk, Rijnsburg, Venlo, Bleiswijk and Eelde), FloraHolland has an annual turnover of 4 billion EUR.
On 1st January 2008, FloraHolland merged with its counterpart, Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer, which has the biggest trading centre in the world. Spread over a vast area in excess of 1 million m2, growers, wholesalers and exporters from all over the world buy and sell some 20 million flowers and plants every day. The Aalsmeer site alone has an annual turnover of 1.8 billion EUR. FloraHolland operates as a cooperative and has over 5000 members/growers who are both shareholders and customers. As a service-provider, the aim of the auction is to offer its members the best buying and selling opportunities at the lowest possible prices. In addition to the auction halls, FloraHolland also accommodates a great many companies that trade, export and process flowers and plants.
The laws of supply & demand
Each day, millions of flowers are brought to auction. After a final check on quality, they are offered for sale from 6 in the morning based on the age-old laws of supply and demand, generating up to 125 000 transactions daily. By 9 o’clock, just about everything has been traded. Rapid logistics then ensure that the flowers and plants sold are taken immediately to a distribution hall, where they are distributed as quickly as possible among the buyers (exporters, wholesalers and florists). “Over the course of a few hours, everything is brought in, inspected, sold and before you know it, the sales people are on their way again to sell their flowers and plants worldwide,” explains Esther Engelberts, head of the HRM (Human Resources Management) Service Centre for staff and salary administration. “Then the following day, they do it all over again. The auction is an energy-charged environment where 10 000 people go to work each and every day. So you can imagine that the 1 400 employees in the logistics department have to be planned for and dealt with quickly and efficiently.”
The search for a new system
Until recently, though, the planning side of the operation was not as efficient as it might have been. In fact, the system was antiquated and not flexible at all, with all of the different rosters and schedules tending to create capacity problems. Maintenance also left much to be desired. In its search for a new system, the Aalsmeer site began by finding out what the HRM department and logistics department needed to enable them to plan and deploy their people properly. Once that was done, a call for tenders was drawn up, setting out the purchase costs, length of service life, ease of use and other features in addition to time registration. Complex rosters needed to be devised with variable factors such as the different collective bargaining agreement rules, so that the reality of the flower auction could be replicated. In the end, out of a shortlist of five companies, the Efficient solution provided by Kronos came out on top.
Kronos Efficient: for a working environment that is anything but smooth-running
Because the range of flowers varies from day to day, the auction operates with numerous different rosters, as well as part-time contracts. Esther Engelberts: “Our people always start early in the morning, but never know in advance exactly when they will have finished. The Efficient application provided by Kronos is able to fit in with all this perfectly.” The system records where and how long a person has worked. The workers clock in and out as they go from one department to the next. Efficient even makes allowances for overtime and additional hours, as well as sick leave, night and day work and special time off, plus changes to cost centres and such. Someone who starts work at 6 in the morning is paid at a different rate to someone who works Saturdays. Overtime hours can either be paid for or saved up.
“The Efficient application was up and running in no time at all. In the space of five months, the system was operational and able to meet 90 per cent of requirements,” says Esther Engelberts. “Kronos manages to keep an eye on everything with ease.”
The difference is like day and night
The Kronos Efficient system is particularly easy to use. Users can see all the data they need on a single screen, without having to click back and forth between sub-screens. This limits the number of operations required and makes the whole process much faster. For managers who allocate and process the complex hours of staff, the difference is like day and night compared with the old system.