Royal Flying Doctor Service Integrates Departments and Improves Prime Resource Utilisation With Quintiq Solution

MELBOURNE, Australia, March 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Quintiq, a leading provider of Advanced Planning and Scheduling (http://www.quintiq.com/solutions/advanced-planning-and-scheduling.aspx) solutions, today announced that the Queensland Section of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) has gone live with a Quintiq multi-resource planning solution. The integrated rostering solution ( http://www.quintiq.com/solutions/employee-planning-and-scheduling/rostering-and-shift-scheduling.aspx) unites assets and personnel planning for the RFDS Cairns Base, including aircraft, pilots, doctors, nurses, and other staff. By unifying the region-wide planning, RFDS has succeeded in reducing administration costs and, more importantly, increasing utilisation of its key assets. With improved resource utilisation, the RFDS is able to provide broader medical care to more people in need.

RFDS is a not-for-profit (NFP) aeromedical organisation that delivers primary health care and 24-hour emergency evacuations to people residing in rural and remote areas of Australia. One of the largest and most comprehensive aeromedical organisations in the world, RFDS employs the latest in aviation, medical and communications technologies. In Queensland, RFDS has a fleet of 20 aircraft operating from seven bases located across the state and conducts more than 80,000 patient consultations per year.

Better planning means better service

The Quintiq solution plans RFDS' prime resources across multiple planning levels, from long term leave scheduling and mid-term roster planning to last-minute changes on the day of operations. The more efficient planning enabled by Quintiq enables RFDS to better utilise its resources to ensure that the people who need treatment are able to receive it in a timely fashion. Moreover, with a single, integrated planning system, RFDS managers now have constant up-to-date information about resource availability - crucial when providing emergency care. Better, faster decision-making is just one of the many benefits RFDS is now reaping thanks to the Quintiq solution.

With Australian outback populations as well as the demand for a broader range of medical services both expanding, RFDS is a fast-growing organisation. However, being an NFP, the RFDS relies heavily on fundraising initiatives and donations from individuals, organisations and the community. As a result, reducing operational costs ( http://www.quintiq.com/industries/field-service-workforce.aspx) is top priority. Not only does the Quintiq solution support better resource utilisation, it also reduces the necessity for labour-intensive manual rostering and significantly lessens associated planning errors and inefficiencies. An additional advantage is direct, real-time visibility of rosters, which are available online for all RFDS employees. This is important, as many employees work in the field and some rarely come into the office.

"We have been very pleased with the speed of the implementation, particularly considering the size of the project," commented Nino Di Marco, CEO of RFDS (Queensland Section). "Being a decentralised organization, we needed a multi-resource planning solution to consolidate all our resource and personnel rostering to improve their utilisation. The Quintiq solution has been configured to take into consideration the operational procedures specific to each centre, so we now benefit from the best of two worlds - unified planning processes that automatically accommodate the individual planning specifications of each base."

Paul Shepherd, Director at Quintiq, added, "The Royal Flying Doctor Service provides life-saving medical treatment to hundreds of thousands of Australians. It is an honour knowing that with Quintiq supporting its planning, RFDS will be able to improve and expand its services and assist more people."

About Quintiq

Quintiq provides advanced planning, scheduling and supply chain optimization ( http://www.quintiq.com/solutions/supply-chain-planning/supply-chain-optimization.aspx) software solutions. This fast-growing company, established in 1997, offers and implements software for planning ( http://www.quintiq.com/solutions/production-planning-and-scheduling.aspx) and optimizing complex business processes throughout the enterprise. The company's worldwide headquarters is located in The Netherlands and the USA with subsidiaries located in Australia, China, Finland, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, USA and the United Kingdom. Quintiq systems are implemented in 74 countries worldwide. More at http://www.quintiq.com. Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/quintiq

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About Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia

The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) is dedicated to providing vital health care to anyone travelling, working or living in Australia.

The iconic RFDS's emergency retrieval service operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week and has expanded to provide regular transfers of patients for life-saving surgery such as organ transplants and heart surgery, delivering critical support to those who live in rural and remote areas.

A broad range of essential health care services to rural and remote communities are also delivered by the RFDS. This comprehensive health care service includes general practice, Indigenous health, child and family health, social and emotional wellbeing, women's health and health promotion.

Today, the RFDS provides the finest care to more than 270,000 Australians each year - that's one person every two minutes.

In Queensland, the RFDS operates from eight bases including Brisbane, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, Townsville, Cairns, Mount Isa, Charleville and Longreach. These bases form a strategic network and help deliver the finest health care to all Queenslanders situated in coastal, regional, rural and remote areas.

Although the RFDS receive some Federal and State Government funding, the RFDS rely on fundraising initiatives and donations from individuals, organisations and the community to help us raise $6 million each year to purchase and aeromedically fit-out our aircraft, purchase vital medical equipment and enhance our operational facilities. To make a donation visit http://www.flyingdoctor.org.au or phone +61-1300-669-569.