90 % of employees use the mobile app for clocking and access control

Strip’s: innovator in the field of electrical equipment

Strip’s develops and produces electrical equipment and also has a subsidiary company, Lumenia, which specializes in LED lighting. They develop and manufacture their products for a specific customer according to two principles:

• ODM – at Strip’s, they develop and manufacture the product for the customer.
• EMS – the customer develops the product, and Strip’s manufactures it.

They provide custom electronic and mechatronic solutions in the fields of lighting, household and commercial appliances, the automotive industry, medicine, e-mobility, smart energy and the Internet of Things.

The company has its own research and development department and its own production. Over the years, it has gained a reputation as an innovative and reliable strategic partner in the field of ODM and EMS.

Challenge: a company across four locations, without access control

Ana Ring Rupar: “Absences for private reasons used to be submitted on paper slips years ago, and later by email. With the transition to SPICA’s solution, we took quite a big step forward.”

“When we implemented SPICA’s solution, we were operating across four locations. Employees also worked in such a way that they started one day at one location and finished at another. The next day, they started work at a third location. SPICA’s solution came closest to what we needed: systematic tracking of arrivals and departures and simple preparation of payroll data,” explains Operations Director Ana Ring Rupar.

The challenges had already been accumulating before that. There was no access control, and data was collected analogously. The challenges were even greater because, in 2018, a large part of the company was expanded, which meant there were many more entrances. Since there were also increasingly more employees on site, visibility in the area of access control became increasingly poor.

“For payroll purposes, we had time terminals, but we did not have a web application. Employees could see most of the data, but not all of it, and only on the terminals distributed around the company. Absences for private reasons were submitted on paper slips, and later by email. With the transition to SPICA’s solution, we took quite a big step forward,” says Ana Ring Rupar.

Work is simpler, and there are fewer errors

Today, Strip’s has 295 user licenses and also the PIF module for transferring data from access control directly into payroll processing software. Melita Smodiš says the following about this:

“The greatest benefit of SPICA’s solution is that the data is transferred directly: every arrival and departure, for every location, for every change of location and for every lunch break. Given the current number of employees, I find it hard to imagine working according to the old system. I think we evaluated SPICA’s solution when we had 110 employees and introduced it when we had 160 employees. It was very difficult to check all the data. Now it is significantly better.”

Administration has therefore been significantly reduced.

Melita Smodiš finds it difficult to estimate the time savings precisely, because she never measured them. But in her view, the savings are substantial. In any case, her work is much simpler, and the possibility of errors is much lower. Previously, there was a lot of email, a lot of communication and a lot of calling. None of this is needed anymore.

Time is a valuable resource, which is why such a solution is especially useful. It is important to monitor time, and thereby also measure and improve productivity. At the same time, security is also greater, both because of access control and time and attendance records.

It is also easier to monitor absenteeism. This is especially important because, since the pandemic, there has been a noticeable increase in sick leave. This kind of effective data collection is an example of easier management and monitoring of trends with the help of SPICA’s solution.

Employees widely use mobile phones

Employees are given access to their own data via the web and the mobile app. Requests for vacation and other absences are mostly submitted through the mobile app.

Of course, when it comes to absences, additional coordination communication is sometimes also needed, but approvals and rejections are mostly handled in SPICA’s mobile app.

Ana Ring Rupar says: “I think 90 percent of employees use the mobile app. No one had any reservations about using their private phone for this purpose.

We presented this to employees as the responsibility and right of every employee, since everyone has access to their own data and, with that, the ability to take care of missing registrations, submitting requests and similar matters themselves. It is also interesting that this is not an especially young team. The average age of employees is 40, and SPICA’s solution was introduced four years ago.

The company’s entrances are equipped with a video intercom system. In addition, they also have seven licenses for mobile identification in the access control system. General Manager Tomaž Smrkolj also uses this option exclusively. Other employees register with a card or chip.

                                          Most reimbursements based on travel orders are paid out in the current month

One year after the implementation, they also began using SPICA’s solution for travel orders. Until May 2023, travel orders for all employees were fully prepared and processed by the secretary. Now each employee does this themselves. Administrative staff still make sure that no one misses the deadline for preparing a travel order.

“In principle, all employees are now very engaged in this. However, this practice was not self-evident from the beginning. This obligation was the most difficult to put into practice. Many people, out of habit, asked why the secretary could not continue doing this for them.

But now we pay out very few reimbursements based on travel orders in the following month. We pay out most of them already in the current month,” says Ana Ring Rupar, adding that they also use the module for sick leave.

According to her, the experience with SPICA was excellent both in the sales phase and in the implementation phase. The responsiveness and professionalism of support were also excellent.

4 key benefits of SPICA’s solution

• Time savings in the preparation and transfer of payroll data.
• Elimination of human errors in the preparation and transfer of data.
• Better monitoring of absenteeism, which is important due to the noticeable increase in sick leave since the pandemic.
• Easier planning and better control over working time.

3 interesting practical benefits in the company

• Use of the mobile app for absence and overtime requests. It is used by most employees, on their private mobile phones.
• Use of mobile identification for registration. It is used by the general manager and six other employees.
• Employees take care of travel orders themselves. For this purpose, SPICA’s solution is used by everyone in the company.