Time and Attendance, Access Control & Visitor Monitoring

Tensor gets Plastered

Fri 18th February 2005

Astins Ltd are a major dry lining and plastering contractor of mixed sized contracts in southern England with head offices in Croydon, Surrey. They are a main contractor for the Dry Lining and Plastering at the site of the New Romford Hospital; a multi million pound project where Astins will be working for approximately two years. Over 200 people work in the company of which around 90 are at the Romford site.

In October 2004, Quantity Surveyor, Andy Barber, wanted to install a Time and Attendance system to see who was on site and to check the hours worked by the skilled craftsmen. In particular he wanted to streamline the existing clocking system they had at that time. Andy looked at systems from Time Ware and a few other companies as well as Tensor.

Tensor was selected because “Tensor Smart Cards can be read through a safety glass window, so the clock could be located on the inside of the building where it was safe and could not be interfered with”.

A WinTA Lite Smart Card clocking system was installed in November 2004. There were no problems with the hardware installation which was carried out by Astins' technical staff. They had a few software issues that were swiftly resolved by the Tensor Helpdesk, who were described as “Fantastic” by Zoe Jackaman, the Office Administrator. Zoe was trained on-site, by a Tensor Training Consultant. She described the quality of the training as “Very Good”.

When asked what she liked about the WinTA Lite system, Zoe said “Easy to use, we have plenty of mixed labour on site and it's simple enough for them to get it right - they have taken to it very easily.”

Astins do not use the Fire Roll Call feature of WinTA Lite but they do use the Mimic Panel feature to monitor who is on site. Contractors and other visitors must register themselves 'onto site' if they come on for other means which allows Astins to use WinTA Lite to report all personnel present at any given point in time.

Zoe has used the Tensor Helpdesk and described the service as “Excellent”. When asked how Tensor could improve their service to Astins, Zoe said “Don't think you could, we are more than happy with the service”

When asked what she liked most about Tensor, Zoe said “Simplicity” and would Astins recommend Tensor to other companies? “Yes, definitely.” was the retort.

Finally summing up Tensor in a few words, Zoe said “Reliable and easy to use.”

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