Robinson Healthcare Secures Access and Monitors Staff Attendance with Tensor
Robinson Healthcare is one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of healthcare products, providing medical professionals, pharmacists, retailers and consumers with products they can rely on every step of the way.
Founded back in 1839 by John Bradbury Robinson, a retail chemist in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, the company’s continuous innovation ethos and dedication to quality above all else helped it develop and thrive over the years.
Nowadays, almost all Robinson Healthcare products are manufactured at a large UK dedicated facility in Worksop, Nottinghamshire. The processing plant houses a large Class 7 cleanroom and an in-house twin chamber steam autoclave, among other high-end items. Roughly 160 members of staff currently work at the site.
Around a few years ago, the company’s board started looking for a new time and attendance and access control system to be installed at their site, as their older one was starting to become not fit for purpose. Plus, as Mr. Tim Johnson, Robinson Healthcare IT Manager, revealed, “we wanted to replace the existing system with a more cost-effective solution”.
Several competitors were also considered at the time, but the Tensor system was ultimately chosen, the decisive factors being “product maturity” and “costs”.
The Tensor Time & Attendance system installed at Robinson Healthcare comprises multiple T1488G smart card networked scanners used for restricting access, as well as electromagnetic locks protecting high-security areas of the facility, such as the sterilizer room, server room, etc.
Furthermore, it also features two T32xx series all-in-one, affordable, IP enabled Time & Attendance clocking terminals, designed to support fast and easy operation and also delivering a plethora of features that gives you better time and management reporting, such as Absence Reason Codes, Working Patterns Rules, Employee Messaging, Job Booking, Job Costing and Labour Hours Analysis.
The Tensor Time and Attendance system enabled Robinson Healthcare to tackle two different issues using a single, unitary platform. First of all, they were able to restrict access to specific areas just to the personnel with specific work tasks attached to the respective parts of the site (such as the cleanroom, etc.). Then, it enabled the management team to constantly monitor the employee’s attendance, check manning levels, set working rotas, etc.
While the hardware components play a vital role in ensuring the required level of security for each area of the site, the system’s full functionality is unlocked by the Tensor.NET software platform, which grants users a superior level of versatility and control over both the access control and the time and attendance components of the system.
The Tensor Time and Attendance and Access Control solution was installed at Robinson Healthcare, with the whole process being completed around September. Unfortunately, some firmware-related problems were encountered immediately after the system was put in place, but everything was ultimately solved, with full support from Tensor’s engineers and R&D team.
Mr. Johnson and another member of staff were trained by the Tensor dedicated personnel on using the system. He describes the quality of the training process as “very good” and believes that, at the time of the interview, the company was using the Tensor system at its full potential.
Given the specific nature of the activity at the Robinson Healthcare manufacturing site, the company’s management decided to also implement the Fire Roll Call feature available within the Tensor.NET platform.
Safety is ensured when Tensor clocks and Access Control units are connected to a company’s fire alarm system to trigger a fast, automated fire evacuation list.
From the most basic “on site” reporting, to the individual tracking of employee’s movement between fire zone/fire assembly points, Tensor’s Fire Roll Call can be tailored to meet the most stringent safety requirements.
Luckily, the alarm was never triggered in a real-life situation up until now, but even so, Mr. Johnson told the Tensor reporter that “We’re testing it every week and it works fine.”
The Robinson Healthcare IT Manager revealed that, in order to solve the firmware-related issues encountered immediately after the installation process, he called the dedicated Tensor helpdesk line on a few occasions, and describes the quality of the analysts’ service as “good”.
While some of the functionality issues were sorted out remotely, others required Tensor’s Operations Department engineers to visit the Robinson Healthcare site. Speaking about the overall quality of their service, Mr. Johnson commented: “The engineers who visited our site were very knowledgeable. The experience was a good one.”
Summing up, Mr. Tim Johnson said: ”Overall, we’ve had a good collaboration with Tensor.” For this reason, when asked whether he would recommend Tensor to other companies, his answer was a definite “Yes”.
Customer Information:
Robinson Healthcare Limited
Lawn Road
Carlton-in-Lindrick
Worksop
S81 9LB
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 (0)1909 735000
