AW Fraser is a leading supplier of bronze and brass components worldwide, exporting 98% of its goods to Australasia, Asia, Europe, America, and the Middle East. Providing end-to-end solutions for various businesses, the company produces and supplies continuous and centrifugally cast bronze alloys, hollow and solid brass extrusions, and precision machine components using bronze and brass alloys. 

Operating out of Christchurch since the 1930s, it’s not hard to find their specialist products in all sorts of industries, from mining and construction to marine and railway systems. 

The problem

AW Fraser has been innovating since 1952 when it became the first company in the country to use a centrifugal caster. But like any established industry, some of its processes were lagging behind the times. 

Interestingly, AW Fraser wasn’t looking for a time and attendance system but rather an HR information system to help them manage employee files and automate certain processes. When talking to another company about the systems they used, TimeFiler was mentioned in conjunction as supporting software. 

As it turned out, this would prove to be an opportune moment — AW Fraser was facing the prospect of needing to upgrade both its HR and payroll systems and seamless solutions were minimal.

“We didn’t upgrade the payroll system in the end”, says People and Capability Manager Fiona, “because TimeFiler has the brains; it can bolt into any payroll system we want.” 

TimeFiler eliminated the need for a payroll upgrade by integrating and improving the efficiency of the old payroll method. As Fiona puts it, “the intelligence system tells the payroll processing system the rules, and then they just need to follow them.” 

TimeFiler also answered another massive problem—physical spreadsheets and outdated technology. Everything AW Fraser was doing, from employing new team members to performing exit interviews, processing holiday leave, and tracking hours, was reliant on paper-based systems, leaving a lot of work for the single payroll officer onboard.

Ongoing ‘timely woes’.

The existing system TimeFiler was to replace was a bit of a ‘logistical Frankenstein’. Hardware clocks, some software and manual timesheets were all used and processed through one busy payroll officer. 

The old software, in particular, wasn’t built to understand holiday payments, meaning hours had to be doubled to produce double-time payments. On one occasion, when AW Fraser tried to automate the process, it nearly ended up paying employees four times the true amount owed, which led to an even more time-intensive workaround. Payroll ended up accepting managers would have to manually change the hours worked one by one. 

With TimeFiler, public holiday pay is calculated from the moment anyone clocks in, automatically calculating the amount owed due to the calendar day. 

The setup.

As Fiona recalls, many AW Fraser systems were immature (or non-existent) and creating a new system to integrate within the existing structure didn’t take long. Providing a largely ready-made solution, in this case, meant TimeFiler was able to offer many benefits AW Fraser didn’t even know they needed. 

In the end, deciding to switch was a ‘no-brainer’. TimeFiler offered a modern, fit-for-purpose system that had proven itself in similar industries and provided a huge step up to AW Fraser’s previous system. 

As Christchurch locals, TimeFiler could meet in person to discuss the system, highlight the advantages, and make quick updates as needed. TimeFiler also discussed other advantages, which ended with AW Fraser not needing to update their payroll system. 

The biggest mission during the setup turned out to be a real advantage in better utilising AW Fraser’s capabilities. 

The company’s one payroll officer wanted to reduce her four-day week to three days. The complications in the existing payroll system made this problematic. Given the amount of payroll information the payroll officer had stored in her head, finding seamless cover within the company would be challenging. Even while training up a suitable replacement, it was obvious that there was no immediate stand-in solution in place.

Since its inception, TimeFiler has been able to automate many of the functions that the payroll department manually performed. Perhaps even more significant is how TimeFiler has allowed AW Fraser to delegate responsibility without needing new hires or excessive training. 

Much of the legwork involved in capturing time tracking and shift work is now performed by shift managers and fed back to payroll. This changeover, which took only a few hours of training for the managers, has decreased the workload for the payroll officer, allowing her to devote her expertise to more productive tasks in her new three-day week. A one-pager of instructions has also meant that anyone brought on as a shift manager can quickly be brought up to speed on TimeFiler’s systems. 

The solution.

TimeFiler has helped bring AW Fraser’s processes into the modern age, which now aligns with their cutting-edge manufacturing technology. As a multiplatform device, TimeFiler has allowed its users to clock in and track time on their smartphones, including all their pay conditions and leave benefits. This new-age solution has meant that employees can access information about their pay that wasn’t available beforehand, reducing the confusion around leave requests and overtime.

Unexpectedly, TimeFiler has also become a notification board for AW Fraser’s employees. Using TimeFiler, managers can now send messages to employees before they get to work. This proved essential when AW Fraser had to shut one of their main gates for 24 hours, impacting its 200-odd employees, some of whom were scheduled over two shifts. As a company operating 24/7, this ability to communicate in a way everyone can see, no matter what shift they’re on, has really enhanced their performance.

The TimeFiler experience.

The introduction of TimeFiler has meant a massive change for AW Fraser. Under the old system, days were spent preparing payroll documents, with senior team members doing mundane tasks that weren’t really worth their time. The clunky, slow system, too, was frustrating, leading to downtime when the system couldn’t cope with multiple users overwhelming it.

TimeFiler has allowed a lot of the time and attendance monitoring to shift to supervisors close to the action, easily tidying up payroll records that would normally need a more senior team member. Now, these processes need little manual intervention. 

This shift in departmental roles has saved a lot of time and made a ‘complete convert’ out of AW Fraser’s payroll officer, who harboured some doubts about delegating these responsibilities. Now, she confidently says, ‘it’s a manager’s responsibility’, and uses her time much more effectively.

TimeFiler has also allowed AW Fraser to get the same level of accuracy in a much shorter period without the usual frustrations, breakdowns and headaches they experienced beforehand.  

“It just becomes an essential thing to have, a contemporary time and attendance system”, says Fiona. “It’s modern technology and easily accessible — so why wouldn’t you do it?” 

When asked if she would recommend TimeFiler, Fiona said, “yes, I would if a company was presented with the same pain of not having good systems. If their payroll person was taking a day to complete payroll, they wanted it reduced to a few hours and work shifted to supervisors. If you have a person slogging away at payroll for a day, then you’re missing a trick, and you should have a system like TimeFiler.”

If you’d like to learn more about implementing TimeFiler for your company, you can book a demonstration with the team here.