Planning the deployment of auditors at a certification body is a challenging task: auditors must be available based on their qualifications, certification deadlines must be met, and client sites must be coordinated. At the same time, it is important to keep organizational effort and travel time to a minimum.

In SKZ’s Certification business unit, a custom-developed software tool now supports this process. The tool was created as part of a bachelor’s thesis at the Technical University of Würzburg-Schweinfurt (THWS) and was supervised by SKZ’s Digitalisation Research Group. The starting point was a specific need identified by the certification body SKZ-Cert, whose auditors are deployed nationwide.

“When planning assignments, many factors must be taken into account simultaneously. This is precisely where we saw great potential for digital support,” explains Tim Dees, a scientist in the SKZ Digitalization Research Group and the thesis advisor. “Our goal was not to replace the experience of those responsible for planning, but to support them with well-founded suggestions.”

Systematic Planning
Resource planning is typically carried out on a monthly or quarterly basis. The software developed integrates professional qualifications, capacities, vacation periods, certification deadlines, and the locations of auditors and clients into a mathematical optimization model.

Based on this, the system generates suggestions for assigning and scheduling audits. Even last-minute changes can be taken into account. The final decision is deliberately left to those in charge. The software serves as a support tool and creates transparency in a complex planning process.

Potential for More Efficient Schedules
As part of the bachelor’s thesis, an existing manual planning process was compared with an algorithmically generated assignment. Under identical conditions, it was shown that the calculated total mileage could be significantly reduced in the scenario under consideration.

“When an algorithm simultaneously takes qualifications, schedules, capacities, and distances into account, it can reveal interrelationships that are difficult to fully grasp given the large number of possible combinations,” says Dees. “This can help reduce planning efforts and make deployment schedules more efficient.”

Shorter travel distances can also lower resource consumption and reduce travel times. In this way, digital planning supports the efficient use of available capacities.

From Scientific Idea to Application
The project emerged from a collaboration between the Certification and Research divisions at SKZ. Analysis of the planning problem led to the development of software with a web interface that is now used at SKZ-Cert to support resource planning.

“We were particularly impressed by how quickly a scientific idea was transformed into a practical application,” says Robert Schmitt, Managing Director of SKZ. “The project demonstrates how research and operational practice can jointly develop solutions that support complex tasks in everyday work.”

Potential Far Beyond Certification
The developed concept is not limited to audit planning. Similar challenges exist wherever qualified specialists, changing work locations, deadlines, and limited resources must be coordinated. Potential areas of application range from service and field operations to testing and inspection tasks, as well as other planning-intensive areas.

The solution developed at SKZ exemplifies how mathematical optimization can help companies make planning processes more efficient, transparent, and resource-efficient. This approach thus opens up potential far beyond the certification industry.

Further information on SKZ-Cert
Further information on the Digitalisation Research Area