Tag: Processes

Shop Floor Data Capture is the Canary in the Coal Mine for modern Businesses

As a production company, making sure you stay on top of your produce and waste numbers is an essential process if you wish to remain in business. Any drop within your production numbers could become critical as less stock means less money. That is why it is crucial for any company who produces a product to implement a shop floor data capture system.

In the days before OSHA safety standards, coal miners would bring canaries down into the mines with them, the little yellow birds would tweet happily in their cages, raising the spirits of the miners as they toiled away beneath the mountains. The birds, being so tiny, would also die if exposed to dangerous, invisible gases, which gave miners a warning to get out before they met a similar fate.

Shop floor data capture is kind of like that, if it was for manufacturers.

Shop Floor Data Capture: A Better Canary?

Let’s say that you run a printing company, and you have your machines set to produce 500 magazines an hour in order to meet your client’s needs (it’s just an example, you could easily use this with any product on the market). What you don’t know is that your presses are only putting out 450 an hour because of an easy-to-fix problem that’s hard to detect. You don’t realise your production is falling behind until you’re almost at the deadline and your numbers aren’t adding up. Shop floor data capture is a way to prevent this sudden, last-minute realisation

How Does It Work?

Shop floor data capture is fairly simple: you attach sensors to your production machinery, and those sensors capture the raw numbers in real-time. Those numbers are then provided directly to you, and if there’s a deviation from what you need to have, you find out in minutes or hours instead of days or weeks. The system is smooth, and it uses wireless communication to make certain you know what’s going on at the shop floor level so you can side-step any nasty surprises.

Put another way, no metaphorical methane is going to sneak up on you and your workers while you’re toiling in the mine. For more information on shop floor data capture, and how it can help your business, simply contact us today!

The Importance of Access Control in the Digital Age

The idea behind access control is simple. If you don’t need access to certain information in order to complete a task then you won’t be given access. Access control within a business works in a similar way with company owners, managers and employees often having different levels of access. As technology changes access control becomes a necessity for all businesses.

Access Control is one of the oldest necessities in business. For example, while a store might have 50 employees, only the owner and a select few managers have the keys to the door and the code to the alarm system. That way, if the store gets robbed, and the perpetrator had both a key and the security code, it narrows the pool of possible suspects.

The idea behind access control is simple: if you don’t need access to something to do your job, then why should you have that access?

The Challenges of The Internet Age

As technology grows more advanced, access control becomes both more necessary, and more difficult. Most businesses today have a computerised network, and that network controls all of the activity in that business. Hourly employees use the network to clock in and out, and human resources uses it to keep track of employee information and to make changes when necessary. Management uses the network to evaluate job performance, to store notes on employee activity, and to keep track of customer information. That’s a lot of data, and a business has to make sure that employees only have access to the parts of it they need to for security purposes. That’s a big challenge to face, but it’s why Elf Productivity Ltd. designed software to make that job easy.

A Software Suite That Does It All

Our software was designed specifically with access control in mind, and we combined that with ease of use. If you want to make sure that only managers have access to certain files, our software can help you do that. If you want a digital time clock, and a software suite that allows employees to alter their own personal information for name or address changes, we can do that as well.

In short we’ve created a single tool that will help your business achieve more with less energy. For more information about how this software can keep you secure while letting you do more, simply contact us today!

Is Human Resources Necessary in The Age of Employee Self Service?

Over time labour specifications have evolved dramatically due to the advancement in society. Community’s were once made up of people who took care of themselves now each individual has a specialised ability n band together within bushiness to form departments of people who all work together.

One of the ways you can tell that a society is becoming more advanced is the specialisation of labour. That means that it goes from a community where everyone more or less takes care of themselves individually, to a place where everyone has a more specialised trade. So, instead of everyone doing a little bit of everything, you have a blacksmith, a farmer, a carpenter, etc. Businesses are like this too: at first, all of your employees have to be able to do a bit of everything, but over time you grow and develop into separate departments who all work together as part of a greater whole.

But what happens when technology renders a job no longer necessary? We don’t have milkmen or lantern lighters anymore, but what happens when this kind of obsolescence happens to a department in a company?

Will it happen to Human Resources? Employee Self Service: The Future of HR?

In the past, it was necessary to have an entire department dedicated to keeping track of employee information, Human Resources is what we usually call it. If you need to get your banking information changed, if you got married or divorced and need your name altered, or if you moved and needed your address updated you, would go to HR, fill out some paperwork, and wait for someone in the department to input your updates.

The technology that business runs on has shifted dramatically though, and most businesses operate on a single computer network. With integrated software, it’s possible to promote employee self-service. What that means is that if you have to do any of the things mentioned above, you simply log on with your company password, go to your profile, and change the information yourself. There’s no paperwork to fill out, no waiting on the change to be made, you simply log in, fix the issue yourself, and get back to work.

Changing The Way You Do Business

While there’s something to be said for doing things the old-fashioned way, employee self-service allows businesses to streamline their operations, and it cuts down on the amount of work and time that the HR department does have to do. The question that has yet to be answered is whether this self-service option is going to free up HR to tackle big problems, or if it’s going to render HR as a department obsolete.

If you’d like more information on employee self-service and on our integrated business software that lets you achieve more with less effort, simply contact us today!

Integrated Software which tracks Time and Attendance

Computerised systems are now the underlying part of any business, with most departments using one on a day to day basis in order to complete crucial tasks. From the tracking of hours, payroll and employee productivity, computers are often the eyes, ears and memory for many organisations. However businesses often use a number of different suites to complete the above tasks.

While we might say we’re still punching that time clock, most workers are actually logging in their hours on a computer terminal, or swiping their ID badge to clock in. While computerised time clocks are nothing new, businesses looking to streamline their software and who want to condense the technology they’re using have been looking for ways to integrate the time clock into a standardised software suite, which is precisely what Elf Productivity Ltd. provides.

Keeping Track of Time and Attendance (Along With Everything Else)

While computers have been integrated into common businesses little by little, they’re now an undeniable part of how even small companies run. From payroll and hours tracking to human resources and tracking productivity, computers are the eyes, ears, and often memory of a business.

So why use a dozen different suites to track important information when you could simply install one kind of software to keep track of everything? That’s the question Elf Productivity Ltd. asked, and it’s what led them to design a unique software suite that’s a one-stop-shop for a business who wants all of its information in a single, easily accessible place.

This software suite keeps track of all the necessary information a company needs. It has employee information, hours worked, and similar data all in a profile that employees can log their hours in as well as updating their information without bothering HR. The suite also provides access control, making sure that only those who need to see certain sensitive information will have access to it.

Integration is the name of the game, and it saves your business time, money, and effort. For more information on how Elf Productivity Ltd. can help you, simply contact us today!

Why You Need Shop Floor Data Capture Capabilities In Your Business

When a problem occurs all businesses should be able to respond and if necessary change. This is even more crucial for businesses within the production industry as one small change could potentially spell the end for their company. Having a shop floor data capture system in place would provide your business with the information needed in order to stop this process from ever happening.

Every business needs to be able to respond and change when it becomes clear that there’s a problem. For businesses who want to get the edge on their competition, while keeping their clients happy and production up, it’s important to invest in shop floor data capture.

What Is Shop Floor Data Capture?

Shop floor data capture is when you set up machines that can instantly record your production numbers and beam them wirelessly to you. As an example: say you were a candle manufacturer, you have seven machines going at once and they’re set to produce 200 candles each day; one machine is malfunctioning, and it’s only producing 180 candles. Sure, that 20 candles might not seem like much on the first day, but after a week that’s 140 pieces of lost product. If you only evaluate production numbers once a month then the problem will already have grown pretty big.

Now say you had shop floor data capture set up, these devices would keep an accurate count of the number of candles being produced, and they’d send an update to you to let you know there was a problem with the production numbers, that way, you would know the source immediately, and you could investigate it as soon as you saw the numbers slipping.

Elf Productivity Ltd. Is Here To Help

While there are a lot of different options on the market for shop floor data capture, Elf Productivity Ltd. has streamlined the process and made it as easy as possible to get results. Our software suite gives business owners all the numbers they need, and they’re updated regularly to ensure that no problem goes undetected for long. Not only that but this software is designed for ease of use, ensuring that all you have to do is plug-and-play.

For more information on how Elf Productivity Ltd. can help your business, or about shop floor data capture in general, simply contact us today!

Benefits to Time and Attendance Software

Managing employee time and attendance data is a hard job for any human resource department. Calculating payroll and holiday time as well as generating reports can take hours, costing your business money. Implementing an easy to use time and attendance system will reduce the number of hours spent on these kind of tasks as well as benefiting your business in numerous other ways.

Managing employees’ time and attendance sounds like hard work for any Human Resources department, even the smallest of companies spend an inordinate amount of time with reports, payroll, and holiday time calculations, the list can seem endless at times.

Many are unaware of the tremendous benefits afforded through the use of Time and Attendance software. Here are just a few:

The Time is Up for Clocks and Cards

If your company is still using a time clock, you are hemorrhaging a great deal of money out of your payroll department. On average, dispensing, collecting, calculating, and purchasing time cards costs roughly eighteen minutes per employee, per week. That’s around fifteen hours for each employee annually. Everyone knows, in business, time is money!

Help Those Who Help Themselves

Although it is simply “part of their job”, Payroll and HR collectively, or separately, spend hours over the course of a year looking up data for employees: vacation time due, verifying days or hours worked, scheduling questions, and many more inquires. Time and Attendance software allows employees to find this information out for themselves.

Absenteeism Adds Up

While some employers may feel that an absent employee is reducing payroll, it is actually costing companies more. According to CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel Development) research, 90% of businesses say that absenteeism is “a significant cost” for their company. Sickness generally accounts for eight lost working days per year for every staff member or around 3.5% of working time annually.

To save your company valuable time, money, and resources, please contact us to learn more about our Time and Attendance software today.

Accurate Time and Attendance is Paramount

Having an accurate time clock is one of the most important features within a business. Employers use the time clock as a way of keeping everything fair and employees rely on them in order to be paid correctly. This is why the implementation of a fully functioning web based time and attendance system which records employee data in real time is becoming ever more essential.

The time clock is one of the most important features of any business, and the more accurate that time clock is, the better. It’s better for employees who want to make sure they get paid for every minute on the clock, and it’s better for employers who want to run a fair, tight ship. With all of the challenges businesses face though, it’s important to try to streamline as much as possible.

That’s where Elf Productivity Ltd. comes into the picture.

Time and Attendance Solutions

What Elf Productivity Ltd. has done is create a software suite that can do multiple things at once. The software combines Access Control and Employee Self-Service with a time clock feature that will keep an accurate count of how long someone has been working. Not only that, but the software allows someone to alter and change their time for accuracy without the necessity of involving other departments and employees. Instead of running a dozen separate programs, each of which has a separate purpose, this suite allows employees to do everything all at once.

Simple and Straightforward

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and this software suite makes the process as simple as possible. The setup and installation are simple, and the software is easy to navigate so that employees can make solid use of it regardless of their level of technical literacy.

At the end of the day a business should always use the best tool for the job, and the suite we’ve created was designed to keep track of all the pertinent details. If you need more information on what our program can do for you then all you have to do is contact us to speak to one of our knowledgeable, professional representatives.

Take Advantage of Shop Floor Data Capture

Production companies can have any number of employees and machines working at any one time making it increasingly difficult for them to monitor time and energy. Meaning business are often unable to determine if employees are slacking or if machines are lagging behind. Fitting a shop floor data capture system in to your business will provide you with the opportunity to track each individual employees actions within each section of the production process as well as monitor machine production and waste numbers.

The Art of Chaos

Production is a stressful part of a business, especially having to monitor employees and efficiency of machinery. This responsibility is challenging while still maintaining a cost-effective production process. The amount of machines and employees are at times overwhelming. With each employee working in various parts of the process, it is often though to determine where there is potential to maximise time and energy. That is, unless you have the right software.

Monitoring All Angles

The unique ID swipe system that Ceequel® uses allows the seamless tracking of both individuals and groups: creating real-time result comparison on duration, efficiency, and productivity; giving the opportunity to recognise specific areas that need attention, in order to reach optimal employee efficiency. You can compare the detailed time records for production and employee attendance, for accurate individual productivity data. Our software even calculates performance based pay, then transfers this data to payroll for seamless accounting. These results are then used tweak the process, amplifying individual and group productivity.

Tracking Machinery

This software isn’t just for employees though, it also maintains the capacity to monitor machines as well, even using calculations to convert employee labour and machine usage into a monetary value which can then track machine down time, allowing you to locate areas to maximise efficiency, helping you monitor your production growth and discover needs for new equipment, ultimately increasing your productivity by process maximisation.

Contact us to learn more about how your company can take advantage of Shop Floor Data Capture and maximise your potential!

Is Employee Self Service the wave of the Future?

Businesses are much like machines, with departments acting as cogs that work together in order to achieve goals. If one department fails to complete a task, then it’s possible that other departments within the business may struggle in the completion of their day to day job.

Specialisation in work was one of the biggest developments in creating a society. In the long ago and far away you had metal workers and horse breeders, innkeepers and tanners, each doing their own job in a small setting. Fast-forward to today’s workforce and the village has been replaced by the company, but the idea of specialisation has remained the same: businesses have cashiers and data entry workers, human resources and managers, and each of them does a specific job. The idea is that every worker, team, and department, will come together like cogs in a machine to create a business that works quickly and steadily to achieve its overarching goal.

That’s the goal, at least.

The problem is that it is possible to draw those lines a little too darkly. It isn’t just that a certain task is supposed to be done by another department, it’s that it must be done by that department. Say that Margery just got married and needs to change her last name in the system, but instead of allowing her the ability to go in and do it herself she has to fill out a double set of forms and wait for HR to make the changes for her. Maybe James moved over the weekend, and now he has to update his address. Instead of trusting him to put in the changes he also needs to fill out a stack of forms and wait for HR to get around to making the changes.

The Flexibility of Employee Self Service

Specialisation is a good thing, but so is flexibility. That’s where employee self service comes into the picture. Employee self service means that instead of requiring employees to fill out paperwork and to wait for a specific department to make any and all changes within the company’s system, every employee is given access to change their own information. So rather than filling out forms and waiting a few days to a few weeks, it’s now possible for employees to sign in to the company system, make the necessary changes in a few minutes, and then get back to work.

Elf Productivity Ltd. Is Here To Help

The difficulty with embracing employee self service is that it requires giving more employees more access, which is something that a lot of company software just isn’t made to do. Like the employees the computers have only been programmed to do very specific tasks. That’s why Elf Productivity Ltd. designed a software suite that incorporates everything into a single, flexible whole. From the time clock to data changes, production information to access control, this suite puts all the tools a business needs right at its fingertips.

For more information on how Elf Productivity Ltd. can help your business achieve more with less wasted energy, simply contact us today!

Employee Time and Attendance Self Service: Popular with Employees and Employers

Times have changed since the use of old fashioned time clocks and modern day technology now means your employees can clock in and out on a computerised system. Ceequel employee self service records your company clocking information on a database freeing your company’s managers from having to enter employee times.

Time and attendance software requires an employee self service component to be a fully featured tool.

What advantages does self service provide?

Employees control their own clockings without an expensive hardware time clock.

Old fashioned time clocks require a person to enter time from physical time cards and more modern dedicated time clocks are costly. A modern, fully featured time system, like Ceequel®, maintains clockings in a database. Employee self service frees managers from having to enter employee times.

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