Timekeeper Central® provides a low cost, high benefit solution for Arnott's

Business Type:  Manufacturer of baked goods
Product:  Timekeeper Central
Employees:  900
Locations:  1

Arnott’s has been making biscuits in Australia for more than 135 years and is best known as "Australia’s favourite snack." Today the company employs more than 3,000 people in Australia and has six biscuit factories in the Asia Pacific Region.

Arnott’s Queensland plant, located at Virginia in North Brisbane, is the regional supply chain facility, incorporating manufacturing and logistics. It is segmented into production functional areas, such as mixing, baking, packing, and despatch, and it also has six biscuit ovens feeding 11 packaging facilities. Onsite employee numbers fluctuate seasonally; however, the number ranges from 500 to 900, of which over 100 can be contract casuals at any one time.

It was this Virginia facility that decided to examine its workforce management systems to identify opportunities for higher productivity and cost savings. "We were looking for value-adding techniques to improve our performance as a site and leverage existing resources," recalls Neil Jensen, finance manager operations, Virginia. "Because the project looked at better utilising existing assets and infrastructure, it offered the potential for very low cost, high benefit wins."

Removing the paper trail

Arnott’s Virginia had previously been using manual timesheets to track product labour costs, which gave rise to inbuilt inefficiencies and inaccuracies. It was also a never-ending paper trail that delivered no strategic value.

After making the decision to implement Kronos’ Timekeeper Central software solution to automate its time and attendance management system, it came to Mr. Jensen’s attention that Arnott’s was under-utilising its functionality. Specifically, they were using Kronos’ badge terminals without any integration into management reporting functions. Recognising that the Kronos system was capable of capturing labour data at the shop floor level, and then subsequently allocating it to production costs, Arnott’s decided to implement the full functionality that the Kronos system allowed. This was also the opportunity to fix reporting disparities between shop floor control records and the payroll reports.

A cross-functional project team from Arnott’s Virginia worked on harnessing the business benefits that the Kronos solution offered, and after running a three-month pilot, the new system was implemented across the entire site.

Putting Kronos' experience to work

Once Arnott’s Virginia identified that it had been under-utilising Timekeeper Central, Kronos provided a significant level of programming and support. Now Arnott’s is utilising Timekeeper Central to automate and streamline the management, collection, and distribution of employee hours. Most importantly, the system allows anyone who requires this business-critical data — Payroll, Human Resources, or Finance — to access the information from anywhere in the plant. The system captures all relevant labour data and applies the correct rules and policies when time-related events occur, such as arrival or departure from work, or transfer from one department to another.

Arnott’s has 27 Kronos badge terminals spread around the plant. Each employee swipes in using a bar-coded ID badge to the appropriate department terminal when they start a role, for example, in the mixing area. Then they use the function keys to indicate which task that they are doing. This gives Arnott’s exact labour costs by product line.

The goal: Tracking down labour costs

Arnott’s Virginia redefined the use of Kronos’ system in November 2000, and since then there has been 100 percent elimination of unreported labour costs and more accurate work centre labour calculations.

"There is improved accountability with shop floor control records now equalling the payroll reports," says Mr. Jensen. "Not to mention significant cost savings as team facilitors can now track time down to one-tenth of an hour. Management now has a much better understanding of product costs and is happy that they are being recorded correctly."

One of the major benefits has been the ease of use of the system. "The rate of adoption has been absolutely sensational. I have to commend the team members on their acceptance and use of the system; it has been a very successful transition. They are utilising function keys to report on activities as they move from work centre to work centre," explains Mr. Jensen.

"Middle management has also recognised the importance of this system, and although this level of attention to detail inevitably increases their workload, they have had no hesitation in supporting its use, as the business benefits were obvious," Mr. Jensen adds.

Streamlining the invoice process

With a large contingent of contractors employed at Arnott’s Virginia, the administration involved in writing, approving, checking, and sending hundreds of timesheets and then paying invoices was immense. The Timekeeper Central solution means the same information that is used onsite for payroll is transferred via a dial-up connection to the contract company to prepare its records. The same automated process that is being used onsite is now being used offsite. As a result, Arnott’s Virginia has gone from hundreds of invoices per week to just one, and the head office no longer needs to draw and manage accounts for multiple transactions, which means the indirect savings are substantial.

And the management reports allow access to real-time reporting. The information is not only available to payroll but to the on-the-floor management team who now has real-time access to information. This has been an important transition.

The tangible results are significant dollar savings from reduced paperwork and data entry activity, and enhanced visibility and labour tracking to product costs.

Other Arnott’s sites have looked at similar initiatives. "We look forward to sharing what we learned from these initiatives with them and delivering better business results wherever we can," says Mr. Jensen.

"Labour is a significant portion of our costs, and I can rest confidently that we are now paying considerable attention to detail in managing and monitoring these costs on a daily basis." Implementing Timekeeper Central enabled Arnott’s Virginia to successfully automate its time and attendance management procedures. No more paper timesheets. No more confusion when employees change job functions. Significantly reduced contractor invoices. By fully leveraging the capabilities of Timekeeper Central, Arnott’s Virginia discovered it could better calculate labour costs, improve overall productivity, and save money at the same time — clearly a high benefit solution.