Founded in
1976 and headquartered in Phoenix, AZ, Schuff is the largest and most experienced
steel fabricator and erector in the United States. Projects include City Center
in Las Vegas, Chase Field in Phoenix, Cardinal's Stadium in Glendale (AZ)
and Bronco's Stadium in Denver.
Schuff has
nine fabrication plants located in California, Arizona, Texas, Kansas, Georgia
and Florida while Schuff Steel services customers throughout the Western Hemisphere.
In addition to the fabrication plants, at any given time, Schuff may have
a dozen or more job sites with tens to hundreds of hourly union employees
working at them.
Formerly,
the company had old, electro-mechanical time clocks in the fabrication shops.
They only recorded the day of the week, punch in and punch out. In fact, all
time and attendance and job/labor data was gathered manually. At the job sites,
the superintendent or foreman would manually fill out the timesheets. The
process was intensely manual, time consuming and error prone.
The company
needed to streamline the entire time and attendance system, get up to speed
and be fully automated. The process started back in 2005 and, although there
have been challenges, the system has proven itself to be worth the wait.
One of the
greatest was the employees' culture shock of moving to an automated system
featuring biometrics that was so different from what many of the union workers
had been doing for almost 30 years. In fact, Schuff went ahead with its decision
to deploy its new system prior to getting union acceptance, which took two
years.
Among the
problems encountered was employee concern that the biometric would be like
a fingerprint and get shared with other organizations. They were educated
that this simply was not the case. The company taught them that an important
distinction must be made between identification, a one-to-many match, and
verification - a one-to-one match. It was vital that they understood the difference.
A system
designed to identify a person compares a biometric presented by a person against
all biometric samples stored in the database. The one-to-many system identifies
the individual if the presented biometric matches one of the many samples
on file. This type of system is used by the police to identify criminals and
by governments to identify qualified recipients for benefit programs and registration
systems for voting, licensing drivers, etc. This is the type of system we
typically see on TV crime shows.
The verification
process, however, involves a one-to-one search. A live biometric presented
by the user is compared to a stored sample, previously given by that individual
during enrollment, and the match is confirmed. With this type of system, the
user must be present.
That is because
the actual hand geometry is not stored in a database nor on an ID card. Instead,
a mathematical equation, or algorithm, creates a unique number that represents
the points measured on the hand. The number - or template - that results from
this equation is all that is stored.
When the
user enters an assigned PIN, only that template is transmitted. When the employee
presents his/her hand, the reader runs the authentication process to determine
if the template that is stored matches the biometric being presented. If there
is a match, the person is verified.
There is
no way for any third party or outside agency to use this series of 0's and
1's to identify a person. They are only usable in the biometric reader.
Selecting
the Right Software and Hardware for a Tough Environment
Schuff chose Time Data Systems, Inc. (Tempe, AZ) to configure and implement
InfoTronics' Attendance Enterprise, a fully web-enabled MS-SQL-based solution
that provides robust calculation, editing and reporting capabilities. With
it, foremen, supervisors and managers can access the system through a browser-based
interface via any PC with internet access in the shop or on a remote job.
To collect
the data, Schuff selected Schlage HandPunch terminals. With the hostile heat
environment that Schuff employees work in, only handreaders could work. With
the extreme heat and dust of the desert, finger or thumb prints wouldn't have
a chance. The installation of the terminals at the fabrication plants utilized
standard Ethernet communications and available power. However, the installation
of the biometric terminals at jobsites proved a greater challenge.
Time Data
Systems' technical team realized that they would need to protect the biometric
units from the extreme heat of the Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico deserts
(daily highs exceed 110°F during the summer). They solved this challenge
by creating a "nomadic" configuration of the terminals, designing
and fabricating a dust-resistant, weatherproof sheet metal enclosure which
contains wireless communications, LED ambient lighting for a more consistent
lighting environment, and fully self-contained power supplies.
HandPunch
enclosures were designed to support a 2000 BTU closed looped air conditioner
that mounts to the side of the enclosure and maintains an ambient temperature
of 78°F inside the HandPunch enclosure during the heat of the day. The
readers and enclosures are totally self-contained units that can be mounted
on the exterior of the site trailer and plugged into power, the units communicate
back to the servers in Phoenix via cellular communications from anywhere in
North America in real time. Schuff easily moves the units from site to site.
Once the
system components were selected and it was determined how to install them,
assuring that they would work as expected, the decision was made to go slow,
to take a series of baby steps in implementing the system throughout the company.
The system was rolled out in segments, starting with the fabrication shops.
Smaller ones were done first, followed by the larger ones that employed 200
or more people. Each rollout has resulted in new lessons which are incorporated
into the procedures of the next install. All fabrication shops are now online.
Field job
sites have been moving targets but are very close to being finished. Remaining
are the offices. All of the hourly employees are now on the new system but
salaried employees are not. At present, they use "Employee Self Service"
on their laptops to clock in and out. Since the company's goal is to be paperless,
they, too, will be on the new system during the first and second quarters
of 2011.
Once that
is completed, the final step will be to interface this system to the cost
accounting software.
Lessons
Learned to Share with Others
First of all, and
most importantly, the company has noticed cost savings. Schuff has incorporated
an "incidents and points" module. When an employee leaves early
or comes in late, they are docked ½ point. When absent, they are docked
1 point. Point totals are tracked and are used to evaluate employee performance
and have become an important component of employee reviews.
Point tracking
has led to one interesting conversation. When management went to one site,
an employee asked what would happen to her hours and pay if she got stuck
on the freeway and couldn't make it in on time. It was explained that she
would get paid only from the time she showed up. So, if late, she would get
docked. She found this unacceptable because she was used to being paid whether
or not she got to work on time.
The new system
created a "wake up call" for Schuff managers; they had to hold their
employees to a higher standard. The timekeeping system records all transactions,
even those rejected by the system for being outside defined grace periods.
An employee's time transaction is rejected if they are late, if late often
enough (based on points) they are then written up. Policies and procedures
have not only been established; policies are now being enforced.
The new system
is also countering buddy-punching problems. As an example, Schuff has huge
job sites in Las Vegas with 200 or more ironworkers on the job site. There
was no way the superintendents could keep track of who was on site. They were
giving people eight hours of pay whether they worked a full day or a partial
day. Punching in or out for another is a thing of the past.
Management
at Schuff would recommend this system to others with similar businesses. Expect
some challenges. Change doesn't come easily to employees, especially when
it comes to how their paychecks will be calculated. In a diversified company
like Schuff, implementation in each business sector will have unique hurdles.
With job sites constantly changing, there are constant challenges.
Nonetheless,
Schuff is pleased it made the change. Having Time Data Systems, InfoTronics
and Schlage willing to provide support on a moment's notice has been very
important and key to the company's satisfaction.