Scaling for Success: How Westfield Fire Streamlined Staffing Amid Rapid Growth

Rapid Growth Drives Staffing Challenges

About 20-minutes north of Indianapolis, Indiana, sits the city of Westfield. Like many small to mid-sized cities, Westfield has experienced a significant population boom in the last few years, requiring its emergency services to quickly scale to keep up.

With a population expecting to nearly double to over 90,000 people within two years, the Westfield Fire Department is increasing its workforce from about 100 to 145 personnel by mid-2026.

The department realized it needed a robust staffing solution when it first experienced rapid growth a few years ago and callbacks became unmanageable on paper, spreadsheets, and inefficient software.

“When we were calling people back to work or calling for overtime, there was too much human error. We have union contracts that determine how callbacks are done to ensure fairness,” said the Division Chief of Planning. “But when you leave it up for human error and interpretation, things get missed.”

A Seamless Transition to Smarter Scheduling

In 2019, Westfield Fire expanded its Vector Solutions portfolio with Vector Scheduling. The department had already been using TargetSolutions, Vector’s purpose-built training management system since 2015.

“We switched to [Vector Scheduling] which is another software offered by Vector Solutions. So, when Scheduling became available, it was clear that it was the right software for us because we’d be able to set our roles and our rules to get it set up the way we needed it,” shared the Division Chief.

It was an obvious choice for Westfield Fire to bring on additional solutions to further simplify operations with one vendor.

Enhanced Efficiency and Fairness with Vector Solutions

“Once we got it set up, complaints went down. People were a lot happier because it helped establish more transparency and fairness” said the Division Chief.

With Vector Scheduling, Westfield Fire alleviates scheduling grievances, strengthens compliance with union rules, and saves significant administrative time on managing schedules and keeping its growing workforce informed.

Key benefits the department has experienced since adopting Vector Scheduling include:

In addition to Vector Scheduling and TargetSolutions, Westfield Fire has also added additional Vector software to ensure personnel are ready when the call comes.

• The live skills evaluation mobile app that integrates with TargetSolutions, Vector Evaluations+, enabled the department to simplify tracking probationary requirements. Supervisors can easily capture photos and videos of hands-on demonstrations and complete assessments on the mobile app.
• With customizable checklists and an intuitive mobile app, Vector Check It elevated truck checks, where they previously had little insight. Mechanics are notified automatically when a repair is needed. Westfield Fire also manages all EMS inventory within Check It with plans to track all fire inventory as well.

Westfield Fire also appreciates the convenience of having everything with one vendor and one password to access multiple systems.

“That’s one of the main reasons why we’ve stuck with Vector, because about 10 years ago we had a different software for everything,” the Division Chief said. “Having to memorize all the different passwords that change every three months was frustrating. The Vector suite has a single login, and they have apps too, so everybody’s operating off their phones now.”