Steward staffing ratio monitor for the control room
Problem
Steward numbers per zone are set out in the safety certificate staffing plan, but on the day they are tracked with a paper sign-in sheet at each gate and a spreadsheet tab someone updates between other jobs. A zone that starts fully staffed can drop below the required minimum an hour later: a steward goes on a break and nobody covers, two are pulled to help elsewhere, one never turns up. Nobody notices until the control room supervisor walks the concourse or a duty manager asks a direct question over the radio. The gap between the plan and what is actually on the ground stays invisible until it becomes an incident, and even then the record afterwards is a memory of who moved where, not a number anyone can point to.
Product idea
A live board for the control room that shows steward headcount against the required minimum for every zone, updated by a simple tap-in and tap-out at each zone entry point rather than a paper sheet. Numbers move as stewards check in, go on break or get reassigned. When a zone drops below its required minimum and stays there past a set grace period, the board flags it and pushes an alert to the named control room supervisor, with a second alert to the duty manager if it is still unresolved. The tool does not schedule or reassign stewards itself: it says where the plan and reality have diverged and lets the people on the radio decide what to do about it.
Who it is for
Control room supervisors and duty managers who need to know a zone is short before it becomes a problem, sponsored by the event director or safety officer accountable for the safety certificate conditions.
Possible first version
A tablet at each zone entry point for stewards to tap in and out against a name list, a staffing plan loaded from a CSV of required minimums per zone and time block, and a control room board showing red, amber or green per zone with a running headcount. One alert rule: a zone below its minimum for longer than a set grace period pushes a message to the named supervisor. Version one has no integration with the accreditation or access control system and does not reassign or schedule stewards; check-in is a dedicated device, not a scan against the existing badge system.
- Build classification
- Workflow application
- Rough effort
- 4-6 week first release
- Roles involved
- Control room supervisor, Duty manager, Event director
- Relevant to
- Venue & stadium operator, Professional club, League office, Collegiate athletics
- Systems in play
- Radio and communications systems, Run sheets and checklists, Accreditation platform
- Product framing
- Monitor
Questions we get asked
What data do we need before this could even start?
The staffing plan itself: the required minimum steward count per zone for each phase of the day, in whatever form it exists now, spreadsheet or PDF. Also a name list per zone so the tap-in screen has something to check people against. Neither needs to be perfect. What matters more is agreeing the grace period before a shortfall triggers an alert, because too short a window means constant false alarms during normal steward rotation, and too long means the alert arrives after the gap has already mattered.
Our stewards already scan in through accreditation. Why add another tap?
Because accreditation tells you who is authorised to be on site, not where they are right now or whether a specific zone is covered. Version one deliberately uses a separate tap-in rather than reading the existing accreditation scan, partly because that integration is real work and partly to prove the alerting is worth having before anyone commits to it. If the board proves useful, replacing the dedicated tap with a read from the accreditation system is a reasonable second phase, not a first one.
Who has to watch this board once it exists?
In practice the control room supervisor, because the alert is addressed to them and they are already watching a wall of screens during the event. The ongoing cost is small on a normal day: a few alerts, mostly resolved by moving a steward or covering a break. The plan itself needs updating before each fixture as staffing changes, and if nobody keeps that current the board will flag zones that were never actually short.
What happens if the network drops in the concourse mid-event?
Tap-ins queue on the device and sync once connectivity returns, so a steward can still check in during a dead spot. The board itself shows the last known state with a timestamp rather than pretending the numbers are current, so the control room can see that a zone's count is stale rather than trusting a number that stopped updating twenty minutes ago. It does not attempt to guess at headcount while offline.
Is this your workflow?
Tell us one sports workflow that still runs on paper, spreadsheets, WhatsApp or an outdated system. We will map it and show you what a simpler product looks like.
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