Egress Systems Ltd - Case Study - Cooplands (Doncaster) Limited

Company: Cooplands (Doncaster) Limited

Location: Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England

Business Area: Food Industry - Bakery

System: Focus Pro using HRX5000 clocking terminals with Access Control and Fire Evacuation Reporting

Cooplands Bakery in Doncaster is a large food production facility, producing a full range of produce for its chain of 70 shops located throughout Yorkshire, Humberside, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. The company was founded in 1932 and remains a family business, employing over 250 employees within its production facility alone.

Cooplands were an existing user of the Torus Time & Attendance system for many years, which Egress Systems provided support for. The continued success and expansion of Cooplands meant that, although very reliable, the Torus system was struggling to cope with handling the specific shift requirements. Before replacing Torus with Focus Pro, a decision was made to test the competence of Focus by installing it at the Lion Hotel in Worksop which is also owned by Cooplands. Following the successful implementation, Focus replaced Torus at Cooplands in January 2007.

The installation was conducted in a staged approach, with individual departments migrating from Torus to Focus one at a time. For a number of weeks, the two systems were run in parallel, before Focus being given the green light and Torus was switched off.

The installed system includes the provision of access control of three doors and an electric gate, via the HRX terminals. Focus was configured to allow certain groups of employees from only being able to clock at specific HRX terminals – i.e. only terminals within their work area. Currently, Cooplands have 5 HRX terminals, all connected to the TCP/IP network.

Also, one HRX terminal is hardwired to a dedicated printer as well as an input from the Fire Alarm panel. This provides automated Fire evacuation reporting – without reliance on any software, database or data network.

From the outset, Cooplands were keen to devolve some of the functions of the payroll department to the line managers, including applying holidays and absences, missing clocking's and lateness. Focus was configured to allow line managers to only access employees in their own department, as well as limiting the specific reports they could use.

As with most companies, Cooplands are always looking at different ways they can use technology improve efficiency. We are currently in discussion about exporting data from Focus into their Payroll software – Sigma. This is always something we are always keen to do. Focus Pro does not stand still, it constantly evolves to add new features and functionality for everyone’s benefit. The greater number of payroll packages we can interface with – the more flexible that Focus becomes.

Egress Systems enjoy an excellent working relationship with Cooplands. It is a pleasure to deal with them. We are very grateful that they chose Focus Pro to replace their existing system and we will continue to provide them with the best possible service that we can.