Manufacturing template
The simplest continuous pattern there is: four 12-hour shifts, four days off, forever. The catch is that its 8-day cycle does not align with a 7-day week, so 'which crew is on Monday' changes every week.
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The template
4-on-4-off runs on an EIGHT-day cycle, so it never repeats on the same weekday. The grid below is one calendar week of the cycle; the crew assignments shift by one day each week and realign only every 8 weeks.
| Slot | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | Shift |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crew AOperator | 07:00–19:00×5 | 07:00–19:00×5 | 07:00–19:00×5 | 07:00–19:00×5 | Off | Off | Off | 12h |
| Crew BOperator | Off | Off | Off | Off | 07:00–19:00×5 | 07:00–19:00×5 | 07:00–19:00×5 | 12h |
| Crew COperator | 19:00–07:00+1×5 | 19:00–07:00+1×5 | 19:00–07:00+1×5 | 19:00–07:00+1×5 | Off | Off | Off | 12h overnight |
| Crew DOperator | Off | Off | Off | Off | 19:00–07:00+1×5 | 19:00–07:00+1×5 | 19:00–07:00+1×5 | 12h overnight |
| MaintenanceMaintenance technician | 08:00–16:30×2 | 08:00–16:30×2 | 08:00–16:30×2 | 08:00–16:30×2 | 08:00–16:30×2 | Off | Off | 8.5h |
| Supervisor DayShift supervisor | 07:00–19:00 | 07:00–19:00 | 07:00–19:00 | 07:00–19:00 | 07:00–19:00 | 07:00–19:00 | 07:00–19:00 | 12h |
| Supervisor NightShift supervisor | 19:00–07:00+1 | 19:00–07:00+1 | 19:00–07:00+1 | 19:00–07:00+1 | 19:00–07:00+1 | 19:00–07:00+1 | 19:00–07:00+1 | 12h overnight |
One row per staffing slot; ×N means that many people on that block. Times are local to the location. +1 marks a shift that ends the following calendar day.
From CSV to a live schedule
The download is not a PDF you print and pin up. Its columns are the ones Weekwright's schedule importer reads, so the file you edit in Excel is the file you upload.
Replace the placeholder names in the Employee column with your staff. Leave Day, Start, End, and Position alone — those are what the importer maps.
Drag the file onto the schedule page. Every row is previewed with its detected columns before anything is created, so a bad cell is a warning, not a surprise.
“Maya is off Thursday, cover it”. The agent repairs the week against your real availability, skills, and compliance rules instead of you re-editing the grid.
Common questions
42 on average: four 12-hour shifts every eight days is 336 hours a year per crew short of nothing — in weekly terms, 48 hours in a heavy week and 36 in a light one. Set your weekly cap deliberately or the heavy weeks read as violations.
Because the cycle is 8 days and the week is 7. The pattern realigns with the calendar only every 8 weeks. It is the main practical objection to this rotation, and it is worth checking against your payroll period before adopting it.
Weekwright schedules by ISO week, so an 8-day cycle is applied as a sequence of weeks rather than one repeating template. Save each of the 8 distinct weeks once and apply them in order — or describe the rotation to the AI and let it draft the next week in the sequence.
Weekwright drafts it, checks it against your rules, and lets you approve. Free for a single location.
