• Enable booking staff to see the latest schedule and any spare training slots at a glance
• Allow booking staff to make and amend reservations for rooms, trainers and simulators from their desktop systems
• Employ a system that is resilient and requires minimal specialist training
• Provide web access for customers to review and provisionally book simulator training slots

• Resource-scheduling software from Wallchart International Limited with remote web viewing capability

• Information is instantly accessible, for example spare capacity and alternative options are displayed in colour and in real time
• Booking staff now handle reservations so quickly that despite a rise in demand for Crosscat's facilities there is no need to increase the number of staff
• Crosscat has created a productive mix of customer self service and managed resource scheduling

"WallCHART Resource Scheduling System with web viewing capability has proved both user friendly and reliable for customers and staff who need to identify training slots and make bookings. We are now investing in training with Wallchart to see how we can take more advantage of the systems reporting and template based scheduling capabilities."

- Beat Sutter, Head of Training Administration and Customer Service, CrossCAT

Crosscat provides commercial aviation training for pilots, cabin crew and maintenance staff. It is a joint venture between Crossair, the largest European regional airline and GECAT, a part of GE Capital. Based at EuroAirport in Basel, Switzerland, Crosscat has seventeen equipped classrooms and three flight simulators. Additional facilities are opening in 2002.

Crosscat use WallCHART to schedule simulator sessions

With high capital cost items such as simulators and expensive staff like pilots, effective use of resources and the smooth running of courses is central to Crosscat’s business. The scheduling of rooms, training staff and simulators is the task of the four booking staff in Training Administration and Customer Services. They had previously used a combination of Excel and SAP, the company’s enterprise resource planning system, to handle the task. However, whilst these tools were capable of recording information about bookings, they did not offer any help with the juggling of resources to maximise utilisation.

Beat Sutter, Head of Training Administration, Crosscat takes up the story, "Our investment in new facilities was successful in positioning Crosscat as the leading aviation training centre in Europe. This led to a growth in demand for our services. We needed a tool that enabled our booking staff to actively manage our resources. It had to be easy to use and provide an overview of all resources, capital and human at a glance."

Following discussions and recommendations from their partners at GECAT, Crosscat chose the WallCHART Resource Scheduling System^TM.

	Crosscat headquarters

One of Crosscat's requirements was that customers could view schedules and make provisional bookings for simulators via the web. The installation of WallCHART Web Scheduler^TM provided this facility. Members of Crosscat’s booking staff are now able to search for provisional bookings made by customers, make any further arrangements and then confirm the resources. The booking staff deal directly with the reservation of rooms and trainers. This mix of self service and managed resource scheduling suits both customers and Crosscat staff. The implementation of the Wallchart system in this way has also enabled Crosscat to deal with a growing number of courses without the need to increase staff numbers.

Beat Sutter summarised his experience after twelve months of use. "WallCHART Resource Scheduling System^TM with web viewing capability has proved both user friendly and reliable for customers and staff who need to identify training slots and make bookings. We are now investing in training with Wallchart to see how we can take more advantage of the systems reporting and template based scheduling capabilities."

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