As part of the £150m Kronospan Vision 2020 programme, the investment would enable the Chirk factory to produce oriented strand board (OSB).

Wrexham County Borough Council’s planning committee will consider the proposal on 4th March 2019. 

 

A statement filed with the planning application said: "Kronospan Vision 2020 is an investment programme which will modernise and enhance the site over the coming three years. The forward investment programme has a total cost of £150m. The plans will enable the company to reduce its environmental impact, improve operational efficiency and offer new business and revenue streams.

 

"Kronospan is an important local and national business. It is the sixth largest manufacturing business in Wales and provides direct employment for over 600 people, of which 90 per cent live within ten miles of the site. As such, ensuring that the Kronospan site in Chirk remains a competitive and sustainable business is important to the local and national economy. The Proposed Development would expand the range of products manufactured at the site and ensure that there are no overall job losses resulting from the Kronospan Vision 2020."

 

Source: Insider Media Wales

 

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Factories and production facilities have been using clocking in and out to monitor and measure their employees’ hours for payroll pretty much since the start of factories. The first time-recording machine was invented in 1888!

 

However, there is still plenty of room for many factories to modernise their time and attendance systems in order to maximise efficiency and minimise errors. 

 

Some companies are still using very old-fashioned methods such as swipe cards or punch cards, or very basic fingerprint clocking machines which don’t link to any sort of central system. Depending on the company’s requirements, we can offer three alternatives.

 

Firstly, if they would like to keep using cards to record their time and attendance in order to disrupt the workforce as little as possible, then we can offer the company our contactless proximity smartcards. 

 

These are about the size of an average credit card and perhaps three times as thick, fitting comfortably into wallets and pockets. The radio frequency technology, which can read through non-metallic materials, means that you don’t even have to take them out of your wallet or pocket in order to clock in!

 

The completely contactless clocking technique means that the card doesn’t suffer from wear and tear and doesn’t need a battery, and so barring an absolute disaster can go on indefinitely. 

 

We are experts in systems integration, so it may even be possible for companies to keep any existing radio-frequency cards and use them on our system. 

 

The second option is fingerprint scanning. This is useful for factories who require high-security, high-certainty access control and attendance management. For example, companies which have had problems with people losing their cards, or with people deliberately swapping cards and clocking in for each other. 

 

Whenever registered users have their fingerprints scanned, a comparison is made between the live fingerprint and the stored fingerprint template and if the two match, the event is saved into the central database.