WorkAxle is a workforce management platform built for manufacturing and processing operations: forecasting, scheduling, time & attendance, compliance, and payroll export in one system. Production demand drives the schedule, and certifications, shift premiums, and union rules are enforced while shifts are built, so violations are caught before an assignment publishes. Multi-plant manufacturers run WorkAxle across all their sites and collective agreements at once.
Every line staffed to demand. Every rule honored.
Production volume swings overnight. Lines need specific skills. Union agreements stack, layer on layer. Safety certifications can lapse without warning. Your scheduling system should run on all of it at once. WorkAxle does.
We know what running a production operation actually looks like.
When demand, skills, and union rules are three different problems.
The overnight demand revision came in: packaging volume is up 14% for the week. You need four more people on Line B. They have to be certified line operators, and you're already light on second shift. The forecast lives in one system. The schedule lives in another. You reconcile them by hand, line by line, before the floor wakes up.
HR sends the certification report. Four forklift certs and two food-safety certs expire this month. Three of those operators are scheduled across two plants next week. Let one run equipment on a lapsed cert and you have an OSHA exposure and a failed audit. The schedule never warned you. A spreadsheet did, after the fact.
A grievance from one of your locals. Overtime on Line A wasn't offered by seniority last week. You believe it was. Proving it means digging through call logs and texts from the supervisor who made the offers. The CBA says every offer must be documented. Your scheduling tool tracks none of it.
Plant 02 calls. A line lead called out, and the replacement they pulled isn't qualified to run the sterilizer. A production run is about to start under an uncertified operator. Your system showed who was available. It never checked who was qualified.
Payroll prep. Multiple plants, multiple CBAs, different shift differentials, different overtime rules, different rotation cycles. One analyst spends two days a cycle cross-checking premiums by hand and hoping the export matches what people actually worked.
When demand, skills, and union rules are one system.
The demand spike? The forecast drives the schedule directly. The system caught the Line B shortfall and proposed certified operators who were available and still under their overtime threshold. You approved it before the shift even opened.
The expiring certs? The rule engine flagged all six weeks ahead of expiry. Operators nearing expiry were flagged before equipment posts until a renewal is logged. A post that requires a cert only accepts a worker who holds it.
The grievance? Overtime was offered by seniority, and every attempt is logged automatically, timestamped and exportable. The CBA documentation requirement is satisfied inside the system. Nobody has to remember.
The unqualified replacement? The sterilizer post requires a specific certification. The system surfaces only qualified operators and verifies the match before the assignment publishes.
Payroll prep? Shift differentials and overtime rules are codified per CBA and applied as hours land. The export is already correct. There's nothing left to reconcile.
A multi-plant operation needs a system that reads demand, skills, and collective agreements as one problem. A tool that treats them as three will keep failing you at the start of every shift.
Your production problems. Solved at the system level.
| Your problem | How WorkAxle handles it |
|---|---|
| Demand-driven staffing | Production forecasts feed the schedule directly. When volume moves, the system recalculates required headcount by line and shift, then proposes qualified, available workers who are still under their hour limits. |
| Multi-skill line matching | Every worker's skills and equipment qualifications are mapped to line and post requirements. Assignments are verified against the right skill set before they publish. A post that needs a cert only accepts an operator who holds it. |
| Collective agreement enforcement | Multiple CBAs are codified and enforced at scheduling time: seniority-based overtime offers, premium rules, rest periods, rotation cycles. Overtime offer attempts are logged automatically and held for grievance defense. |
| Certification & safety compliance | Equipment, food-safety, and site certifications are tracked with effective dates. An expiry triggers automatic reclassification, and the rule engine flags the assignment. Renewal alerts fire weeks ahead, while there's still time to act. |
| Shift premiums & overtime | Shift differentials, weekend and holiday premiums, and overtime thresholds are codified per CBA and applied automatically. The numbers are right while the schedule is built, long before they reach payroll. |
| Multi-plant coordination | Workers shared across plants accumulate hours centrally. Overtime and qualification rules are enforced against the worker's full week across every site, so cross-plant coverage stays inside the rules. |
| Clean payroll across CBAs | Pre-classified, rule-applied hours export straight to payroll. Different agreements, different rules, one correct export. With the rules configured upstream, the reconciliation spreadsheet shrinks to an exception check. |
| Audit & grievance readiness | Every assignment, certification status, premium applied, and overtime attempt is logged and exportable. Audit and grievance documentation comes together in minutes from records the system already kept. |
Four modules. One operational reality.
Production volume sets the demand. Forecasting turns it into headcount by line and shift, scheduling fills the lines with qualified workers, compliance enforces the agreements, and time capture prices every hour correctly. The plan on the production board and the people on the floor finally match.
Forecasting & Optimization
Production volume drives labor need. WorkAxle ingests demand data and business drivers, runs multiple forecasting models, and translates the result into required headcount by line and shift. Staffing follows the run that's coming, not the run you had last week.
Learn more →Scheduling & Rostering
Multi-skill lines, multiple plants, union agreements stacked layer on layer. The engine fills every line with a qualified worker, enforces CBA rules and rest periods, and logs overtime offers by seniority. Every assignment is checked against every rule before it publishes.
Learn more →Compliance & Rule Engine
Codify your collective agreements, safety certifications, and equipment requirements once. The engine enforces them on every plant, every shift. Expired certs are flagged. Premium and overtime rules apply automatically. Every decision is logged and audit-ready.
Learn more →Time & Attendance
Plant-floor clock-ins are captured and validated, with shift differentials and premiums classified automatically. Hours arrive at payroll already correct, per worker, per plant, per agreement. No manual premium math, and no reconciliation at the end of the pay period.
Learn more →Frequently asked questions about workforce management for manufacturing
What is the best workforce management software for manufacturing?
WorkAxle is built for multi-plant production operations: demand-driven scheduling, multi-skill line matching, collective-agreement enforcement, equipment and safety certification tracking, and clean payroll across multiple CBAs in one platform. Production forecasts drive staffing. Certifications and union rules are enforced while a shift is built. Hours export to payroll already correct.
How does WorkAxle handle collective bargaining agreements in manufacturing?
You codify each agreement's rules, seniority-based overtime offers, shift premiums, rest periods, and rotation cycles, and the rule engine enforces them at scheduling time. Overtime offer attempts are logged automatically for grievance defense. WorkAxle runs multiple CBAs side by side. Multi-plant producers enforce every collective agreement across all their sites on one platform.
Can WorkAxle schedule multi-skill production lines?
Yes. Every worker's skills and equipment certifications are mapped to line and post requirements. The scheduling engine fills each line with a qualified worker and verifies the match before the assignment publishes. A post that requires a certification only accepts an operator who holds it. Expired certifications are flagged automatically.
How does WorkAxle connect production demand to staffing?
The forecasting module ingests historical demand and business drivers and runs multiple time-series models. The output translates into required headcount by line and shift, which feeds scheduling directly. When production volume changes, the system recalculates staffing need and proposes qualified, available workers who are still under their overtime thresholds. Labor follows the demand the forecast predicts.
See WorkAxle configured for production operations.
See how the compliance engine works.
Understand how CBA rules, certification tracking, and audit readiness connect inside a single rule engine.
Explore the full platform.
Forecasting, scheduling, time & attendance, and payroll export, see how every module connects for production operations.
Bring your hardest scheduling scenario.
We'll show you the platform with your production lines, your certification requirements, and your collective agreements in mind. Bring the scenario your current system can't handle.