Manufacturing Industry

Computerisation of "Clocking In"

It was this most tiered section of the facory that was first impacted by ICT. All workers bar a few management grades were required to clock in and out. The wages office prepared a card for each worker. This process had chaged little in sixty or more years Each worker took a card from the out tray and inserted it in the clock which printed the time on it. in the placed it in the in tray. this process occurred 4 times a day. Clocking both in and out for lunch and out at night.

Once a week the most junior office worker in the wages section would come and put new cards in the machine. The cards had the workers name hand written on them. In the payroll section the hours worked would be added up. If a worker was more than 2 minutes late they were docked 15 minutes pay. There after whole hours were deducted 61 minutes late cost 2 hours pay. If you were early in arriving or late in leaving no extra pay was given unless your foreman had completed a form to sanction overtime.

Different rates applied to overtime. Time and a quarter for extra during the week Time and a third for saturday and double time for sunday. In the office the details on the card were copied into a wages ledger, and the maths completed to calculate the wages due. This job was completed by a grade 2 office worker and checked by a grade 3 worker. A grade 4 worker authorisd the payments. In the wages section on a friday all workers would be counting the money that arrived from the bank into the envelopes and placing this is in the wages envelopes.

This all changed when the first computer came the the company. Initially cards changed an holes were punched in them at the new clocking in machine. The holed cards were collected and fed into the computer. As were the holed cards showing autorised overtime. The central computer, which was a quarter the size of room ICT 1 calcualted the pages and printed the pay slips. some 30 workers were made redundant or redeployed and the computer paid for itself in 20 months. The wages section of the office was restructured with fewer tiers. As no check processes were needed computers don't make mistakes.

© LEV