Case Studies | Page 7

Wabtec Rail Limited provides rail vehicle overhaul, conversion and maintenance services throughout the United Kingdom and is based on a 23 acre site in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. In 2000, during a period of reorganisation, the Accounts Department wanted to replace the company’s time clock system because it was too time consuming to process that clock cards manually, especially at the end of the week when the punch cards were totalled and entered on a computer.

Derbyshire Fire & Rescue needed a simple “non computerised” access control system for their new command centre in Derby, but at the same time they wanted it to use the latest technology. After reviewing several different types of system they chose the T2002 from Tensor. “The Tensor T2002 was the easiest-to-use system we came across.” said Steve Holt-Garner, Information Servce Manager for Derbyshire Fire & Rescue. “It’s fast, reliable and requires no PC’s to run it, and very little maintenance.”

Meridian is a leading company in digital and analogue audio, in surround sound, in CD, DVD and Video. Meridian products are designed and made at their factory in Huntingdon, England.

British Pepper and Spice have been combining their knowledge, craft and imagination to produce quality herbs and spices over many years. Today, British Pepper and Spice are the largest UK supplier of retailer branded herbs and spices. Their own Gourmet Garden range can be found in all major supermarkets. Around 150 permanent staff are employed at their facility at Brackmills in Northampton.

ABB Limited who specialise in process instrumentation and control, analytical products and systems and industry-specific automation solutions have installed a WinTA time and attendance system at the factory in St Neots. ABB wanted a established local company to install a Time and Attendance and Access control system.

York Barbell is one of the worlds leading brands of fitness equipment, designing and manufacturing products in Canada, the UK, USA and the Far East. Their equipment is distributed to 40 countries around the world. In January 2000 Operations Manager, Nelson Oliver, was in search of a computerised Time & Attendance system which included a good Absence Planning system and Access Control facility for the factory itself and the area where personnel records were kept.

C B L Ceramics is a manufacturer of specialist ceramics products based in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, Wales. The company focuses on the manufacture of beryllium oxide ceramics and hot pressed composite ceramics with complete in-house facilities for pressing, firing, metallizing and precision machining of simple to complex parts.

Based in London, Harvey & Brockless are a premier supplier of quality cheese products and food ingredients to the UK and Europe.

Jewson is the UK’s foremost Timber and Building Materials Supplier with over 586 branches nationwide, many of which contain a tool hire facility too. – so you can buy and hire under the same roof.  The national distribution centre located in Cannock just north of Birmingham serves over 586 Jewson Group stores around the UK and used to have an old punch-card time and attendance system. They installed a Tensor system to reduce the amount of administration time taken in processing the 90 warehouse employee time cards.

Hallmark Consumer Services, based in Melton Mowbray in the heart of Leicestershire, is a private company, has a 25,000 sq. ft modern racked warehouse, call centre and office facilities all coordinated from one site.  The factory employs around 50 office and warehouse staff at this site. “The warehouse staff are paid weekly and the office and call staff are paid monthly. Originally the warehouse staff completed manual timesheets which were processed weekly. Very labour intensive!” Said Philip Hall.

Payroll Manager Tracey Door and Mark Ray were in charge of finding a new Time & Attendance system when the UK part of the Spanish company Maier started up in Burntwood near Walsall. After investigating what was available in the market they elected on Tensor and a WinTA and WinPM system was installed in December 2000. This was further upgraded to a WinTA Enterprise and Personnel Enterprise system in November 2002. The installation comprises a T2561 clocking station with 4 additional Smart Card scanners which provide access control within the building via electronic door locks.

British Optical Ltd has an enviable reputation for being World leaders for the supply of Optics for Entertainment Lighting, rod moulding, Reflectors and Projection Optics. Their main operation is based at Aldridge, Walsall. British Optical’s Accountant, Alan Clark, was in charge of getting a new Time & Attendance system to replace their old Blick swipe card system. They wanted to replace the Blick system because of the high maintenance cost, but had to wait until the long (5 year) contract with Blick had expired before they could replace it.