Setting Up Driver Distributions

A driver distribution describes how data in the driver forecast is broken down across the hours of operation. The driver distribution determines how the data is distributed at each time interval during the hours of operation. This distribution affects staffing requirements, which in turn affects workload.

For example, suppose that a department is open from 10 AM until 8 PM, and the forecast is for $1000 of sales per day. Assume that the staffing requirement is one employee for $100 of sales per hour.

  • In scenario A, the driver distribution is the same for each hour of the day that the store is open, so that the required workload is 10 hours per day.
  • In scenario B, the driver distribution is concentrated at mealtimes, as follows:
Hour Forecast Sales
10-11 $25
11-12 $50
12-1 $200
1-2 $200
2-3 $25
3-4 $25
4-5 $25
5-6 $50
6-7 $200
7-8 $200

This distribution means that the staffing requirement from 12-2 and from 6-8 is two employees. However, because rounding rules prevent a fraction of an employee from working, the required workload is more than 10 hours per day. In this case, the workload may be 14 hours per day.

The required workload depends on how the rounding rules are configured.