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Punching Up Precision

Sandvik Materials Technology keeps better track of time, costs and efficiency

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CUSTOMER: Sandvik Materials Technology Canada LOCATION: Arnprior, Ontario BUSINESS: Manufacturer of tools for the mining, construction and automotive industries and specialist in materials technology HARDWARE: An IBM System i 570 SOFTWARE: Kronos iSeries Central and Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne CHALLENGE: Keeping better track of work time and work productivity SOLUTION: Using Kronos and its integration with JD Edwards to better keep track of hours worked, worker productivity and job costs

Back in college, I did a stint at a rubber-stamping factory that supplied parts for the automotive industry. Every day, I’d punch a clock—stuffing a timecard into a punch machine before placing it back into the cardholder on the wall. The HR department would then gather the cards at the end of the week and tally hours for payment.

Things have changed a lot since then. Sophisticated workstation logins or swipe cards that track your comings and goings have largely replaced those punch cards. Those new technologies have the potential to do much more than make sure you get paid for the hours you worked.

In fact, they can keep tabs on not only time on the job, but also job productivity and on-the-floor job flow. And that’s in large part why Sandvik Materials Technology Canada decided to adopt Kronos Incorporated’s Kronos iSeries* Central suite of workforce-management software. Using this tool, Sandvik improved payroll tracking and increased internal knowledge about work progress. Beyond that, Lori Ray, IT manager with Sandvik, points out, “It can be very effective in terms of cost accounting.”

“That System i—or the ones that came before it—has never crashed. I really can’t say enough about the stability, scalability and power of that platform.” ­—Lori Ray, IT manager, Sandvik

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