Jetson cut the labor planning process for Stella & Chewy’s from days to just minutes while decreasing labor spend and improving coverage 

Overview 

Stella & Chewy’s is a manufacturer of premium pet food products, using raw and natural ingredients to help pets thrive. Since 2019, they have seen double digit growth and repeatedly rank among the Top Workplaces in Wisconsin. 

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The Challenge

Growing demand for responsibly sourced, natural pet food products led Stella & Chewy’s to expand their manufacturing facility in Oak Creek in 2022. As operations grew more complex and skilled labor needs grew, managers struggled to keep track of current staffing levels and get a clear picture of future needs. 

 

“Our planning process was chaos and managed in spreadsheets and meetings where we didn’t have a point of reference to understand the basics of how many people we needed to meet our production plan versus how many people we had, accounting for things like turnover and call-outs” reflects Michael Carter, VP of Manufacturing 

This method was error prone and a drain on managers’ time but also made it difficult to keep track of labor costs. Stella & Chewy’s Leadership Team decided they needed an automated and centralized solution that would help scale their staffing approach to meet demand while driving labor efficiencies.

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The Solution

Stella & Chewy’s partnered with Jetson to eliminate data crunching and guesswork surrounding their manual labor planning process. They needed a system that could connect schedules, time clock data, sales forecasts, and other drivers of labor demand in one place. The solution needed to be tailored and configurable to Stella & Chewy’s manufacturing process where work is staged and requires specialized training and different skill levels to perform. The solution also needed to be intuitive and easy for Operations and HR Teams to use for daily labor allocation and weekly hiring decisions.

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Results

Since teaming up with Jetson, Stella & Chewy’s have given time back to managers and achieved bottom line benefits with an automated and centralized labor planning and staffing approach. “We’ve come a long way from spreadsheets and guesswork to trusting a tool that has automation, actuals, historicals, and all our business rules built in” says Carter, VP of Manufacturing. 

 

Here are some ways Stella & Chewy’s have unlocked labor efficiencies in their operation: 

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Generated precise headcount needs for each activity

Jetson took the guesswork out of how many hours, shifts, and lines to run, making it easy for Stella & Chewy’s to move from static headcount planning to a dynamic process where needs automatically update with their sales forecast and production plan. “We’re also able to view and manage inputs like attendance and overtime expectations that feed our headcount plan,” says Carter

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Gained visibility into future staffing needs 

Jetson’s long range planning capabilities make it easy for managers to know when to  hire people and where to staff them. “It’s really the source of truth for what our current staffing levels are and what our future needs look like so we can ramp up or down to meet demand” reflects Carlo Cervantes, HRBP

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Improved in week labor allocation decisions 

With visibility to scheduled headcount and hours as well as real-time clock-in data with Paylocity integration, Operations Leaders could identify over and under labored shifts and close coverage gaps 10x faster while avoiding overtime. 

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Automated tracking of Actuals against Plan   

Planning assumptions improve weekly with easy tracking of actuals against planned headcount, hours, and spend along with tools to manage drivers of variance like overtime and PTO. “Looking at historical attrition rates compared with what we anticipated helps us see trends so that we can project ahead with greater accuracy” reflects Cervantes

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Simplified budgeting 

Jetson has helped Stella & Chewy’s reduce time spent on budgeting from days to minutes, with automated spend tracking and projections. “Typically budgeting required three days of crawling through spreadsheets but now with Jetson as a starting point, we’re able to arrive at a headcount plan that Finance and Operations agree on and understand within 1-hour” says Carter, VP of Manufacturing 

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Kept Teams aligned with a single source of truth 

With labor planning and staffing centralized and automated, Stella & Chewy’s has more time to focus on its people and award winning pet food products. “Jetson is a one-stop shop that’s helped us streamline not just headcount planning but production forecasting and budgeting in one place,” says Cervantes

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​“We’ve come a long way from spreadsheets and guesswork to trusting a tool that has automation, actuals, historicals, and all our business rules built in” says Carter, VP of Manufacturing