3PL

The plan for every warehouse shift, a week ahead.

Put the day's waves in and the team in, and Outlay 3PL builds the plan: who is on, where they work through the shift, and the orders, overtime and briefings it takes to stick to it.

A Libra Europe product

The Outlay 3PL site map: an isometric warehouse floor with people standing in each area, cards for every activity showing people planned against people required and work complete, and arrows for the moves the plan asks for now.
Run day on the site map: people planned against required in every area, and the moves due now. Illustrative site, invented data.

Seven days, three shifts, and a plan for each one.

The week, costed by shift

Each cell is one shift: the labour hours it needs, heads at its busiest quarter hour against heads rostered, whether your own team, overtime or agency covers it, and the cost.

The Outlay 3PL week: seven days across and nights, days and afters down, each cell showing hours, heads against rostered, a cover status and cost, with the week in one line and a table by day beside it.
Plan the week. Invented data.

The waves, client by client

Every wave the WMS has released for the day, laid out by client, activity or shift, so the shape of the day is clear before the team is set against it.

The Outlay 3PL day plan, step one: the day's waves on a timeline grouped by client, each bar an activity with its volume, beside the day's labour hours and waves by client.
Plan the day, step one. Invented clients and volumes.

Heads needed every quarter hour

The waves become demand by activity through the day, set against the roster as a dashed line, with each colleague's day laid out underneath in the colour of the work they are on.

The Outlay 3PL labour plan for one day: heads needed each quarter hour stacked by activity with the permanent team as a dashed line, a tooltip at the busiest slot, and a timeline of people through the day.
Plan the day, step three. Invented data.

The list of things to do

Agency orders by supplier at their rate and notice, overtime asks, roll-call briefings and licence renewals, drafted from the plan and ticked off one at a time.

The Outlay 3PL actions list for one day: licence renewals, agency orders by supplier with hours and cost, briefings for colleagues on the move, and a shortage nobody can fill, with a progress panel and agency and overtime totals.
Do the actions. Invented suppliers and people.

A Friday on the floor, from the first wave to cover.

Run day · Site 2 · Friday
On the floor 0Moves 0
WAVES FROM THE WMS06:00 · Wave 1 · Client AGoods in · 24 pallets08:00 · Wave 2 · Client BPick · 3,200 cases10:00 · Wave 3 · Client APack · 1,850 orders15:00 · Wave 4 · Client CDespatch · 22 trailersGoods inPutawayPickPackDespatch
Roll call06:00

Step 1 of 4: Waves release from the WMS.

Each wave lands with its client, activity and volume, and the zone it needs lights up.

Who covers a gap, cheapest first.

When the work outruns the roster, the plan reaches for the next cheapest source of hours and stops as soon as the gap is closed.

  1. 1

    Home activity

    Each colleague works their own activity wherever the waves keep them busy.

  2. 2

    A skill-checked move

    A colleague trained for the short activity moves across, with ten minutes allowed for the walk.

  3. 3

    Overtime

    The shift that is ending is asked to stay on, priced at its overtime rate.

  4. 4

    Agency

    Whatever is left is booked by skill from the supplier with the lowest rate for that skill.

The rest of the shift, from roll call to sign-off.

The Outlay 3PL roll call at midday: colleagues expected on the shift with confirm and absent buttons, the waves running with people on and needed, the moves due now, and the isometric site map.
Invented site and people.

Roll call

Who is expected on the shift that is on, where the plan has them, and the site map at the same moment.

The Outlay 3PL skills screen: a radar of trained heads against peak need by activity, a cover table, and a grid of colleagues with skill levels per activity.
Invented people.

Skills against the peak

Trained heads on shift against the peak each activity needs, and every colleague's skill levels.

The Outlay 3PL reporting screen: standard against actual hours over a rolling twelve months, the year against plan, and a bar chart of hours over or under plan by week.
Invented data.

Reporting

Standard against actual hours over a rolling year, and the weeks over or under plan.

The Outlay 3PL track screen: required, covered, rostered, agency and saving tiles above a bar chart of the week day by day, with sign-off progress beside it.
Invented data.

Track the week

What each day needs, what is signed off, and what to do before the next shift starts.

What warehouse managers check before they rely on it.

Do we have to build the plan by hand?
No. The plan exists as soon as the waves and the team do. Change a wave or mark someone absent and it re-runs.
Where does the work come from?
From the waves your WMS releases: client, activity, time window and volume. You can also edit them on screen or import a CSV.
What about breaks, cleaning and training?
They are an indirect allowance on rostered hours, never a task anyone is assigned to, and reporting tracks indirect time against that allowance.
What data do we need?
Six plain tables: activities, standards, colleagues, skills, waves and actual hours. Send a system export or a spreadsheet, or use the API, and Libra maps it.
How do new managers learn it?
The guide is built in: a sentence on every screen, and a walkthrough that takes a new manager through the real screens step by step.

One Outlay model of work, people and cost, in three products.

One Outlay model of work, people and cost, in three products: Outlay schedules a factory, Outlay Labour plans its labour hour by hour, and Outlay 3PL plans and runs a warehouse's shifts.

  • Outlay

    Production scheduling

    Turns demand and master data into a production schedule planned against real machine and labour capacity, then costs every run live against standard.

    Visit the Outlay site

  • Outlay Labour

    Labour planning by the hour

    Turns forecast volumes into the heads each area needs through the day and sets them against the team on shift, so agency covers only what is left.

    Visit the Outlay Labour site

  • Outlay 3PL

    Warehouse shift planning

    Turns the waves your WMS releases and the team on shift into a labour plan for every shift of the week, and shows the shift live on a map of the site.

    You are on the Outlay 3PL site

Plan your own warehouse in Outlay 3PL.

Talk to Libra about a scoping day at one site: the activities, the shifts, and how labour is planned and rostered there today.

Talk to Libra about Outlay 3PL

Choose a site and a date, and bring the people who plan and roster labour there today.