Bearward Engineering Ltd is based on a 6,000 square metre site at Main Road, Far Cotton, Northampton England where it is a major supplier to the world generating set market. It is also a significant supplier of radiators for pumping and construction equipment, off highway, rail traction and other specialist equipment.

Around 500 people work within the group with 300 at the Far Cotton site. In early 2003, the then Payroll/HR Manager, Jenny Kirwan, was wanting to automate the Time and Attendance function for payroll and also wanted to have a better control over the time-keeping of the workforce.

Jenny considered several systems and finally narrowed it down to Blick (now Stanley Security Solutions Europe) and Tensor, "We chose Tensor over Blick because their system did what we wanted and was reasonably priced," explained Colin Button, the current HR Manager.

A WinTA Enterprise and Tensor Personnel system comprising 6 Tensor T8440 Smart Card clocking stations distributed over four of their local sites was installed on 20th May 2004 by Tensor.

No problems were encountered with the hardware installation and a minor software problem interfacing to their payroll (quickly resolved) was encountered with the software installation.

Colin explained that he and Jenny Kirwan had two training sessions on the system at Tensor's Training Centre in Hail Weston. "Nothing but praise ' very good!" was how Colin described the quality of the training.

Bearward currently use the system for monitoring employee timekeeping, and producing reports for Managers and the HR department. Asked what he liked most about the Tensor system, Colin said "User friendly reports for the Managers and the Personnel system is good. I particularly like the screen designer, but most of all I really like the flexibility of the system" . He also added "Tensor's Smart Cards are very user friendly and easy to use" .

The Tensor reporter then asked Colin what he thought of the Tensor Personnel system: "very, very good; I've used other packages and Tensor's is better than the others" was the reply. Bearward are currently looking at expanding WinTA Enterprise to include Fire Roll Call monitoring for 4 sites. Would Colin recommend Tensor to other companies? "Yes, definitely would" was the clear and emphatic answer.