CREW PLANNING AND TRACKING SYSTEMS

[OO-AOG]

Hello!

What sort of crew planning / tracking applications are you guys using? Any benefits of one over the other ?

Any suggestions for internet sites promoting their product?

We have about 120 flight crew with mixed ratings, and need to have a practical system to crew plan as well as to track - getting just a little to large for china graphs and boards!!

Will need to work in tandem with around 23 a/c.

Any and all suggestions, including comments on actual applications used would be very welcome.

"Your only safe as a non-rev when the doors are closed...the gear doors, that is...."

null

[Cat-Club]

AIMS - Can't beat it :cool: Don't touch ACROBAT - it's PANTS :mad:

[cj]

ummm - really need to decide what it is you want from a system. Any company that offers this type of system should not object to suppling users that you can go and chat to for their imput.
Main contenders:
Aims - based in ATH
RM - base in UK
Acrobat - base in UK
If you want any other feedback, do feel free to send me a PM (Private message)

[JB007]

Ditto with Cat-Club...

AIMS - excellent
ACROBAT - sh!te

[Big Tudor]

RM are actually based in Stockholm but have offices in London and Paris. Try their website www.rmrocade.com (http://www.rmrocade.com) for product info.
BTW, we used to have AIMS. Wouldn't let them through the door now!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Beware of the promises.

[Clare_Write]

OO-AOG

Check out Geneva a package from the kiwi wizards down under......widely used in that region & is about to start up in Europe. I believe it is a little more cost effective than those mentioned by those before me, but equally as good....maybe better.

If you want further info, contact me by email at [email protected]

The website is www.geneva.co.nz (http://www.geneva.co.nz)

:D :D

[S Kitten]

Make sure you check out Geneva, a great product from NZ that seems to be first choice Downunder.

[ 18 October 2001: Message edited by: S Kitten ]

[superscoop]

Hello

Currently using Sabre Aircrews!

Does anyone else use this and what are your views

[Wizdum]

I was always under the impression that software suppliers could tailor their product to suit, to a certain extent...

[Mr Angry from Purley]

OO-AOG

Acrobat is used at both Monarch and Excel Air
and has consistantly been praised for many a year. It also comes at a more attractive price than AIMS and RM Rocade.

RM and AIMS feature amongst many charter, scheduled and freight Airlines in the UK, probably a 50% split. Most Airlines seem happy with the above, although not to the extent of Arcobat! (and i dont work for Mon)

Last and most important mention is that any systems are only as good as the users!!.

:mad: :mad: :mad:

[swizzle stick]

Well to me you either work for Acrobat or now someone who works for them. From people i have spoken to about acrobat it is very un user friendly and a little out dated, as the computer age has improved over the last ten years Acrobat seems to have stayed in the Ice age, and does not have all or as many or in fact none of the features the others offer. So how can you say this is a wonderful system. (open your eyes and have a look around). Best place for it Deepest Africa. :D :D :D :eek: :eek: :eek:

[Capn Laptop]

Sorry chaps, but Geneva is total crap!

It don't work.

If you do speak with Forte, ask them about the "Optimisation engine"!

[Mr Angry from Purley]

Swiz

Neither to either working for acrobat or knowing someone there, just what i hear on the grapevine. Simple fact is that Acrobat
(from what i've heard) does a lot more things than the others, might be unfriendly and dated but its the basics that are important. It copes with automatic crew assignments miles better than RM and matches AIMS. It was the first with e mailing rosters to crews and is well liked by the CAA.
When you look at the moans and groans from other Airlines, VS looking at RM, BMi all other the place with selction and user issues, Air2 rumoured to have looked at other systems, Airtours switching from AIMS to RM and so on. The only reason I
mentioned acrobat is that MON have constantly praised it since day 1 whereas everyone else seems to moan and groan about their systems.
The fact that MON has 3? Rosterers for 1500? crew speaks for itself.

And No I dont work for MON

:mad: :mad:

[Clare_Write]

Harsh words from Mr Laptop - perhaps stung with a bad roster request somewhere along the line? :( :(

I've worked with Geneva & others & am definitely in favour of it - modern feel,user friendly as does the business, quickly & efficiently. :D :D

No favourtism because there are some excellent products around but a look would be worthwhile. Unfortunately most cost a crap load to purchase. :confused: :confused:

Mr Angry - I've yet to work with Acrobat but words over a pint with crew schedulers indicate it got left in the 80's somewhere - not sure if that was 1980's or 1880's. Very cumbersome....as I say though have yet to use so only go by frequent haresay. :eek: :eek:

[superscoop]

bmi used Acrobat for several years, used to auto assign flying duties by R2 for the Fokker fleet and worked better than the present system. It is old and basic but it does work reasonably well. Only used by Crew Records now.

[cargoflyer]

Hi there,
discussion on what system is best. As mentioned in previous replies it all depends on what airline size you are, how many planes, how many crews and for what you would like to use the system for.

Experience in "Softouch" (old, now Mercury) and AIMS.
If you are looking for a product that takes care of a Crew Planning, Crew Control, Aircraft Planning, Aircraft Day-to-Day Movement Control, Truck Planning and Control you might wish to take a serious look at AIMS. http://www.aims-inc.com will get you there.

No I don't work for AIMS - i am just a well advanced user of the product and love it.

Cheers ;)

[vincecrosbie]

Hav eyou had a look at TopAir? - pretty good system by www.aerocomputer.ch (http://www.aerocomputer.ch)

[dakar]

Hi All

Aims, look at a few before deciding, AIMS by far is the best for our operation approx 750 crew 20 aircraft. Using it for Ops / crewing / Rostering. Excellent on reports and user friendly. No major complaints from the users and support from AIMS very good.

Dakar

[loop]

Seems like alot of you like AIMS which does have a good product and a good technical platform with Oracle and MSSequel however let down by the poor after-sales/support in our experience. Geneva, is perhaps too new on the block to have a track record especially in Europe - and with no office in Europe difficult to see how well it will be supported - but again platform is good - MSSequel. RM has been good and seems to have probably more than half the UK market but is let down on platform and development is snails pace - They are also closing UK office! Acrobat has its fans but platform and technically they are a dinosaur. Lufthansa has a good product with typical German efficiency! Others include Sabre (poor on crewing and megabucks), Atraxis, Mercury(SITA promoted),SBS, Borneman etc...
Thats about it... As others have said it's horses for courses and what you need - you may not need sophisticated optimisers. Keep in mind the after sales support - the best systems are useless if there is no support - ideally local support. ;)

[no sig]

After sales support is perhaps one of the most important issues to consider after operational needs have been met. Also bear in mind the fact that you will, if you get one of the larger systems, probably need someone to manage the system once you have it through the door.

Before selecting spend a lot of time speaking with operators who have the system already and who match your type of operation, ensure you IT bods are part of the selection process.

The above posts give quite a balanced view on most systems. My expereince is that none of them are perfect but you can make a system fit your type of operation.

[swizzle stick]

There has been so much discussion on crew management systems, has anyone else spent the last 18 months looking into what is available and making evaluations on them. I have spent a long time just seeing whats is available and what would suit each airline, I am not employed by an airline, but have conducted this research on behalf of several airlines and this info will soon be realease. An email address will be posted soon so you can request info from, If in the meantime you are intered please leave a message on the forum and state which system you have interest in.
:) :) :)

[Slotdesk]

We're using SABRE at bmi, although I'm more concerned with AirOps rather than AirCrew..
It's not perfect..(What system is !!) but compared with some of the options that we were given, ref other systems, this is fine for our needs.
.
Still, if all else fails, then it's back to the pencils and the big white board !! :confused: :rolleyes: :eek:

[Eurobrit]

If you do not want to setup lots of expensive equipment and maybe also want to use the system worldwide, then very few would be able to beat Phoenix flt plnng used via SITA/ARINC/Shares res system. I Believe they also have an internet version online or in the pipeline.
ctc LGWCSCO for further details.

Unfortunatly we were recently forced to give it up by our new owners. We have never regretted anything more than that.
The maths involved beat all the others that we have tested.

[Devils Advocate]

W.r.t to AIMS.

I'm sorry to say it but, as a person who (with 20+ years of solid IT/Systems integration behind him) , the underlying database of AIMS (Btrieve) is crap - and perhaps worse still is the totally non-relational design that AIMS have placed within it ! (you'd hope that as a professional software house that they'd know better)

Now I can't comment on their Oracle or MSQL implementations - but they can't of changed the DB design that much - or else they'd have to totally rewrite major parts of the application code to handle any new database design.

Ok, from the end-users perspective it's nice to use, but from a systems integration point of view it's pants !

Ps. For what it's worth, we're looking at Geneva - which has seemingly been much better thought through & designed.

[hotroster]

Sorry Mr Devil's Advocate
But I doubt very much that you have the expertise you claim.
Btrieve or if you were current is now Pervasive is one of the better RDBMS that you can get and certainly much more cost effective than Oracle & MS-SQL.
So please don't cloud the issue by 'techno-babble' which you are not qualafied to talk about

[JB007]

I'm not intending on starting anything with this posting but sorry hotroster, in support of Devils Advocate, he is very experianced with computers...

[Devils Advocate]

ROFLOL – hotroster, well I never thought I'd see the day..... you sound like the kind of fella who'd by a car purely on its looks, indeed just the sort of person that J&G Bethanis love to sell AIMS to.

Do you know, I actually once sat across a table from GlenB and asked him why the database design was not 'normalised' and what they were doing about making it so ? His reply was that whilst the design did not lend itself to systems integration, and that it was indeed not fully relational they were not (at that time) planning to change it (i.e. and as to why, see my comments above) – and I won’t even bother to explain the why’s and wherefores as to their use of Text type database columns, and the limits therein w.r.t. accessing them.

W.r.t. database technology – Btrieve / Pervasive are I’m afraid mickey mouse / cheap and cheerful databases, certainly so when compared to Oracle / Sybase / DataServer, etc.....
And there’s a rub, i.e. if an airline already has a site-license for an industrial strength database (Sybase / Oracle) – and many of them do - why on earth should they have to suffer with something second best, to say nothing of having to support / manage it ?!

Unfortunately, AIMS was never designed to be database independent, e.g. you can’t readily slide the airline in-house database of choice underneath the AIMS application – which is a great shame, particularly so with systems integration in mind (but hey, with the Oracle implementation, maybe they’re trying to achieve just that – and if they are, well done ! )

Now for what it’s worth – here’s a précis of the contents of my computing CV:

Extensive experience with Unix (20 years, IBM AIX, HP-UX, Sun, Bull, ICL, SCO, Linux - everything from day-to-day admin through to writing compilers), Windows (all flavours, inc NT Server), and Macintosh.
19 years hands-on development experience using everything from C, C++, Fortan, Pascal, ADA, Accell SQL, Ingres, Vision, VB.
10 years team leading & project development, usually worldwide with publicly known ‘Blue Chip’ companies and government bodies.
11 years working with, and in the development of, GUI development tools, including the development of Cad/Cam systems (running within X11 - Motif/Openlook) and many of the more modern ones.
17 years RDBMS design & maintenance (Oracle / Sybase / Unify-DataServer / Ingres / etc).
Installation and management of LAN’s / WAN’s, including VPN’s.
Web authoring, as well as developmet of backend web ‘services’.
Extensive experience of systems / database integration.

Basically everything from development, technical support, trouble-shooting, consultancy, training, to IT/Systems management.


Actually hotroster I could go on and really guild-the-lily, but why bother, you wouldn’t have a clue about a lot of what I’m on about, aside from which your bonefides for slating my computing experience include, well, what... ?

[MP1]

Try taking a look at the Sabre suite of systems, individually they may seem expensive but taking the whole suite will save time and money integrating with your current systems. The Sabre AirCrews system boasts good optimisation software for building duties and making the assignment.
AIMS is always prefered by the users as it is very user friendly so makes it a lot easier to get the buyin of all the staff.
My advise is to speak to the suppliers and ask them to arrange a field visit to one of their clients.