Category: Manufacturing Business Type: Stainless steel production
Users: 4,000 full-time and 8,000 contract employees across 17 locations
Products:
Project Benefits
• Reduced manual tasks by automating punch-to-pay process
• Increased access to high-quality information for more visibility and process control across the organisation
• Integrated seamlessly with ERP to make critical data available to employees at production bay
• Increased employee satisfaction and productivity with self-service kiosks to access attendance and leave information
Kronos Workforce Central takes Viraj down the path to profitability
 Viraj is a global player in the stainless steel industry and one of the largest producers of stainless steel flanges in the world. Because it is a fully integrated producer of stainless steel products, all steps of production at Viraj — from the melt shop to logistics— are performed in-house. This integration ensures economies of scale and allows the company to pass on the cost-saving benefits to its global clients. Headquartered in Tarapur, Mumbai, Viraj has 17 plants in India with more than 7,000 employees. In the past 15 years, the company has grown in size and expanded its product offerings, always keeping in mind its customer-centric approach to deliver quality products in a timely manner. But with Viraj’s time-to-pay process being almost completely manual, reducing payroll errors, maximising workforce productivity and controlling labour costs were no easy task. The company’s commitment to attain these goals led Viraj to the Kronos® Workforce Central® suite.
Automating critical processes with Workforce Central
As Viraj searched for a workforce management vendor, it had clear evaluation criteria. The company wanted a vendor that could not only automate its entire time-to-pay process, but also provide its management team with greater control over and visibility into the workforce. Viraj also wanted a solution that was web-based so that it could be deployed and centrally managed. After researching many vendors, Viraj found that Kronos was the only provider that could not only meet but also exceed its criteria.
Easy integration and compatibility with SAP
By teaming up with Kronos, Viraj satisfied its need for a completely automated time and attendance system that reduced manual time-to-pay processes in its time-to-pay process. Automation also helped eliminate system abuse by employees. As part of its drive toward complete automation, Viraj also planned to implement an SAP HR and payroll system. It was critical that Kronos Workforce Central suite seamlessly integrate with the proposed SAP system.
Because Kronos solutions are SAP-compatible, the integrated suite not only helped Viraj tackle its initial goals to control labour costs, reduce manual processes, and improve productivity, but also provided high-quality, timely information that gave unprecedented visibility into the organisation. With the insight that it gained, Viraj was able to take additional actions to further streamline critical steps in the time-to-pay process.
Workforce productivity reaches new heights
With the Kronos Workforce Central solution, Viraj achieved all the benefits it had hoped for. Automation provided more accurate, real-time information that helped the company reduce payroll costs and allowed managers to make more-informed workforce and business decisions. The time and effort required to process monthly payroll and contractor payments were reduced dramatically due to automated calculation and employee self-service. Since Kronos solutions are web-based, Workforce Central met Viraj’s criteria for a system that can be easily maintained and supported from a centralised location. The Viraj IT department now provides technical support from one location, so the costs related to assisting staff are minimal.
Rapid implementation and deployment key to success
The time needed to deploy Kronos Workforce Timekeeper and the Kronos 4500 Touch ID terminals was of paramount importance to Viraj. Implementation was staged to first address immediate priorities. Deployment of terminals in all locations was tackled first so that the teams could centrally capture and process data that could then be passed on quickly and easily to payroll for eventual payment. Streamlining not only automated the time-to-pay process, but it helped eliminate issues related to buddy punching. In addition, Kronos’ standard reports were used by management to better understand who was on the premises so that managers could more easily address various time-related exceptions.
Employee satisfaction increases with self-service
Through self-service kiosks deployed in production bays, Viraj employees not assigned to a PC were provided with instant access to their personal information regarding schedules, attendance, leave requests, and other critical personnel details. Information that was once available only through the Viraj time office was now immediately available to employees via an easy-to-use kiosk with an interface that worked much like an ATM. Employees responded very positively to the new kiosks, feeling more empowered and self-sufficient than ever.
Increased efficiencies and superior service complete the Kronos solution for Viraj
Viraj also used the Kronos 4500 Touch ID terminals to track food consumption so that it could better control inventory. All employees were required to punch their lunches in at the terminal, which were installed in all cafeterias. This made it easy to track how many lunches were taken in any given day and eliminated the monthly distribution of lunch coupons.
Viraj has achieved maximum benefits from a Kronos solution that allowed it to eliminate its manual time system, sufficiently control information, provide real-time visibility and control payroll costs. Today, with streamlined processes and centralised data, Viraj continues down the path to profitability.
“Kronos has given us exactly the tools we needed to address all our workforce management objectives, and as a result, we are able to focus on more strategic issues,” said Nitan Chhatwal, managing director of Viraj Steel.
This case study has been contributed by Kronos Inc. |
