SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MAKING STAFF SCHEDULES AS A FUNCTION OF AVAILABLE RESOURCES AS WELL AS EMPLOYEE SKILL LEVEL, AVAILABILITY AND PRIORITY

A staff scheduling data processing system and method schedules staff and management personnel at locations remote from a central location by applying central location policy to unique remote location data to insure the optimum staff schedule for each remote site. The system and method includes a data base for storing and retrieving information characterizing: central office policy; applicable labor requirements; tasks that need to be performed; skill levels required to perform tasks; resources that may confine or facilitate the scheduling of a task at a given time; relationships between tasks that will alter the placement or movement of a task on a schedule; employees with associated skill levels and priorities and availability; the employee's start-time and stop time, the percentage of an employee's time that it takes to work on a particular task, and the positive or negative slide in relation to the task's completion time by an employee. Upon request to create a schedule for a given day for a remote location, the system and method selects all the tasks to be performed on that day, and using historical data about that location, the tasks, the skill required to complete the tasks, the available resources, employee availability, and central office policy, creates an optimized display of the required schedules.