Attention Manufacturers: Replacing Your Time Clock Can Yield Impressive Savings

By Author: mytimeforce
Total Articles: 18
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The American economy is currently in the midst of one of its most serious contractions in history. Across the country, orders are down, factories are being idled and workers are being laid off in record numbers. Entire plants are being closed down for good. It's not just manufacturing that's suffering, but every sector from real estate to automotive, entertainment to banking and publishing to construction. Even the computer industry, once expected to lead this country into the twenty-first century, is suffering the effects of the recession. With declining sales and pressure from stockholders to prevent losses, if not still produce modest profits, it's no wonder that so many companies have turned to unprecedented levels of cost cutting in order to improve their bottom lines. What management teams should consider before they immediately take drastic steps, is that there are real cost savings to be realized by upgrading the technology used for tracking and managing their employees.

There is one area in particular that's low hanging fruit in terms of potential savings for many of the companies I've dealt with, time ...
... management and staff attendance.

Many businesses are focused on manufacturing, with large numbers of employees working in massive production facilities. When I walk around these plants, it's surprising to see how many of them are still relying on outdated time clocks. These devices offer rudimentary control over employee attendance, but are easily bypassed when staff punch each other's time cards. Any data has to be manually entered into a computer system; besides being time consuming, this introduces another opportunity for errors. Time clocks that have been designed in recent years have added a slew of improvements to the original models including swipe card capability, the option for biometric tracking (to foil those few employees who might try to defeat the system) and even remote sign in capabilities for offsite workers. Even more importantly, the systems are fully integrated with powerful staff management software, giving instant access to personnel profiles including attendance records, vacation and sick time, as well as any overtime worked. This combination allows a company to optimize their staffing, improving productivity, reducing overtime requirements and cutting costs; all of which may help to reduce the need for layoffs.

About The Author:
Kendall Gregson is the person that many companies turn to when it comes to studying their operations and finding cost savings through maximizing efficiency. The ability to accurately track time and attendance of employees is one of the key areas Gregson typically concentrates on. Many companies are so focused on tightening production processes and using computer technology to track their parts and inventory in real-time, that they tend to overlook their largest expenditure: staffing, Gregson writes in one recently published study he co-authored. While inventory control is obviously a sound choice, there can often be comparable savings to be had be replacing the antiquated time clock with a modern version that's coupled with employee tracking software.