Mission Foods Case Study
Mission Foods benefits from Kronos biometric time recording solution
Mission Foods is a world leader in the manufacture of tortilla products and is the world’s largest manufacturer of Mexican food products. The company produces around a quarter of all tortillas sold in the world, with operations in the UK, Latin America, USA, Holland, Italy, Asia and Australia.
A long-standing customer of Kronos in the US, Mission Foods opened its UK operation in 2000 with a 65,000 square foot factory in Coventry. Kronos was adopted immediately as the time and attendance solution of choice, following its successful deployment across Mission Foods sites in the US.
Biometric time recording
Mission Foods employs 205 people in Coventry and employees record their working time using Kronos biometric finger scanners. Similar to all manufacturing environments, Mission Foods must ensure that employees on the shop floor have been trained and have the appropriate skill set for the job. It’s imperative that only these employees have access to the building. Russell Towlson, Plant Manager at Coventry explains, “We pride ourselves on producing a quality product at Mission Foods and it’s essential that the factory is manned by trained, skilled employees. Biometric time recording ensures that there is never any opportunity for fraudulent clocking, where untrained staff might be able to access the site.”
By eliminating the need for swipe cards, biometric time recording brings the additional benefit of a reduction in the amount of administration required to process new cards or deal with forgotten cards, as Russell Towlson explains, “Lost and forgotten cards can create unnecessary admin for the team, whereas you really can’t forget or lose your finger on the way to work! In a food manufacturing area we also have a strict dress code with no pockets allowed in the factory, so reducing the number of items that employees need to carry around is certainly a great benefit.”
Automating processes
Kronos is invaluable at Mission Foods to ensure that employees are paid correctly, that attendance, absence and holidays are recorded accurately and to ensure that team leaders have visibility to which employees are scheduled to work across the various daily shifts - employees work across three different shifts over a 24 hour period and for five days out of six every week. “Team leaders have a key role to play in ensuring the efficient running of the factory and Kronos ensures that many potentially admin-heavy jobs are automated, which allows the team leaders to spend more time on the shop floor”, says Russell Towlson. He continues, “The system gives us complete visibility to employee holidays, ensures that we are alerted to unusual patterns of absence, and has reduced the number of pay queries that supervisors were required to deal with each day.”
At Mission Foods, Kronos is configured to report exceptions to regular work patterns. Late in and early outs would be highlighted to supervisors, as would regular late starts, frequency of absence, overtime and holidays.
“Kronos ensures that we spend less time on admin and more time on the shop floor adding value to our business. It’s a very stable system, very accurate and ensures that we have a fair and equitable process for managing all employees”, concludes Russell Towlson.