PeopleForce, its history and its market position

[AlainBolyn]

PeopleForce, its history and its market position

Marc Mauroy, CTO of Synthetis, joined the team in 2004. He then took charge of pre-sales and carried out consulting missions.

Since 2016, Marc has been in charge of research and development for Synthetis and supports the sales force.

In this article Marc tells us about the genesis of PeopleForce as well as the developments expected in the era of Industry 4.0…

PeopleForce is today the reference software for the management of production personnel.

In the era of Industry 4.0, PeopleForce digitalizes

• skills management
• follow-up of training courses
• the production staff’s schedule
• and more generally all the elements that the operational manager needs to manage his staff

Synthetis, is a software editor for the industry for more than 30 years.

The story of PeopleForce goes back to 2007: an MES project for a large group in the food industry – Industry 4.0 was not yet talked about at that time.

In the reflections on the improvement of the tools of the production managers, the problem of the planning of the personnel in the production workshops arrived: “who does what at what time?

We initially envisioned this as a project, but within a few months we realized that there was a real market demand.

Both in the food industry and in all industries that work in shifts – with more or less fixed workstations depending on the load of the plant.

So we decided to embark on the PeopleForce adventure – to create a personnel planning software.

It took us 2 years to produce a working automated schedule. Over time we have perfected the automatic assignment to arrive today at an assignment engine that is recognized in multiple industries, multiple situations and is fully configurable by key users.

This is a characteristic of our company: we emphasize the fact that the user must be able to change the configuration of his plant. A factory is alive!

PeopleForce has been enriched over time to better manage temporary staff, manage more complex factories with different scenarios of staff loan, integration with existing systems such as time management…

The second turning point for PeopleForce was the addition of training management.

In fact, the practical organization of the trainings is integrated into the planning of the workshop staff.

PeopleForce allows you to manage your training plan. Whether it is personal development, anticipating retirements or a change in activity.

PeopleForce manages skills, certifications, authorizations… but also medical restrictions or production equipment: work clothes, harnesses…

The major evolution of PeopleForce that we are experiencing now, is to take a wider place in the process of digitalization of the company.

In fact, PeopleForce is taking a central place for field managers:

• A single point for all personnel matters: calendar, counters, skills, training…
• A very practical vision of the teams: skills matrices, training triggers, etc.
• A very powerful and especially configurable planning tool, to adapt to sometimes complex concrete situations 

This evolution is done at the same time as the transformation of the software into a web version

• With a mobile application for employees to consult their schedule and any other information
• With a web interface, adapted to tablets, for field managers: team leaders, production managers…
• With a planning tool as efficient as ever
• With a fully configurable display solution

All this with a SaaS offer, hosted and administered by us.

In conclusion, PeopleForce is a collaborative tool for Industry 4.0.

With PeopleForce, we provide a very tangible solution for digitizing staff scheduling, skills tracking and training.

Our ambition is to help manufacturers be more efficient in their operations, by providing the digital tools they need.

Do not hesitate to contact us to evaluate how PeopleForce can help you concretely.