Sainsbury’s is set to roll out a new automated system that it claims will simplify the management of its 150,000 staff.

The Kronos work management system monitors everything about an individual store, from the number of customers to the regularity of deliveries, and calculates how many staff will be needed across a 24-hour period.

Once Sainsbury’s enters details of each store’s staff, including skills, availability and preferences, the system creates what a Kronos spokesman called “a picture of the perfect staffing of the store.”

Staff will still clock in and out using Sainsbury’s existing system, although it will be integrated with Kronos.

“Kronos will help us manage and allocate our labour in store,” said a spokesman for Sainsbury’s. “It will also simplify our current processes and make it easier to provide our customers with fantastic service.”