Manufacturing time and attendance FAQs
What manufacturers ask before changing a clocking system. If yours is not here, call the Leeds team on 0113 350 9043.
What time and attendance software suits factory workers?▼
Software that handles rotating shifts and premiums without manual calculation, uses a terminal robust enough for the floor, copes with a whole shift arriving at once, and sends hours to payroll without re-keying. The requirements in a factory are different from an office. Most production staff do not carry a phone at work, overtime rules are rarely simple, and a shift change can put two hundred people through the door inside ten minutes. Any system that manages those four will serve a factory; plenty of well-known workforce platforms manage two or three.
Can it handle rotating and night shifts?▼
Yes, including shifts that cross midnight, which is where simpler systems come apart. You set the patterns, the premium rates for nights and weekends, when overtime starts and how bank holidays are treated, and those rules are applied to the recorded hours rather than to an assumption about a standard week. Getting the rules right at setup is where the value is, and we do that with you rather than handing over a manual.
How do you handle variable shift starts and flexitime?▼
Variable starts are worked out from when each person actually clocked, against the shift rules you set, rather than from a fixed start time. Flexitime is handled by
Syncro Flexi, part of Syncro Connect. Each day has a target, time above it goes into the person’s flexi balance and time below it comes out, and you set the carry-forward and debit limits. Different teams can have different rules, so the office can be on flexi while the production floor stays on fixed shifts.
Which clocking method works best on a production floor?▼
Usually not fingerprint, which surprises people. Flour, oil, dust and hands worn smooth by handling materials all cause failed reads, and by mid-morning that describes most of a production workforce.
Facial recognition or
palm handle those conditions, and palm also works where masks or visors are worn.
Cards remain the simplest option and the one you need anyway for visitors and contractors.
How fast is it when a whole shift arrives at once?▼
A clocking takes about a second, so the question is really how many terminals you need and where they go. Two hundred people through one reader at ten past six will queue, whatever the technology. Tell us how your shift changes actually work and we will say how many readers and which entrances, rather than selling you one and letting you find out.
Does it work across multiple sites?▼
Yes, with one system across every plant and access restricted by site, so a manager sees their own people rather than scrolling past four hundred names to find twelve. Hours can be reported by site, department or cost centre, and somebody who works across two sites carries one credential rather than one for each.
Does it help us comply with the Working Time Regulations?▼
It gives you the records, not the compliance. Every clocking is time-stamped, so you can show the hours each person worked, when they started and finished, and the breaks they clocked. It does not calculate the 48-hour weekly average over a reference period or police rest breaks for you, and we would be wary of any supplier who says software alone makes you compliant. The rules themselves are set out on GOV.UK for
maximum weekly working hours and
rest breaks.
Can we cost labour against production jobs?▼
Yes, with
Realtime, where staff clock onto a job or batch rather than just onto shift, so you can see the hours a production run actually took against what you planned. Worth knowing that it costs labour time only, not materials or plant. If costing production jobs is the reason you are looking, Realtime is the product; Syncro Connect does not have
job costing.
Does it replace our ERP or MES?▼
No, and it should not try to. We do time, attendance, absence and access. Production planning, machine monitoring, output tracking and skills matrices belong in an ERP or MES, and those systems do them far better than a workforce supplier would. What we do is make sure the labour hours going into whatever else you run are accurate, which is usually the part those systems depend on and handle worst.
What happens if the network or the internet goes down?▼
Terminals hold their own records and keep accepting clockings, syncing when the connection returns. Nobody stands at the door with a clipboard. On a site where a network outage would otherwise stop a shift being recorded, this matters more than most of the feature list.
Will the shop floor accept it?▼
More readily than most managers expect, provided two things are true. It has to be quick, because a system that adds thirty seconds to everyone’s morning gets resented and then worked around. And people need to be told what is recorded and why, particularly with biometrics, where an unexplained terminal appearing on the wall causes more trouble than the technology ever does. Accurate recording also works in the workforce’s favour, since overtime and early starts stop being forgotten.
How long does it take to put in?▼
Syncro Connect can record clockings from the first day, and most factories are fully set up within about two weeks of payment. Realtime takes longer because it is installed and there is more to configure. Either way the work is in your rules rather than the software: shift patterns, premium rates, overtime thresholds, how lateness is treated. That is a conversation with whoever runs your payroll, and it is worth doing carefully, because rules set wrongly at the start produce plausible-looking figures that are quietly wrong for months.
