GSK Bio

Case Study

GSK Bio : The winning ticket!

Effective management means leaving nothing to chance. Starting with time. Which is why, since 1996, GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals has placed its trust in UNITIME, the time and attendance management software from IDtech.

A very satisfied customer...

Time is priceless. Especially when it comes to beating viruses. This is the battle being fought by GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, with the success that we all know. The company's Belgian arm employs nearly 4000 people, including over 1000 scientists and several hundred people spread out around the world. GSK Bio is currently the world's leading producer of human vaccines. The company has a 20-hectare (50-acre) site at Rixensart, with about fifty buildings dedicated to R&D, administration and production. There are also branches at Wavre and at Gembloux, in the CREALYS science park in the province of Namur.

October 1997: "We could no longer make do with an outmoded attendance management system, based on mechanical time-clocks and traditional cards," explains Michel Tambour, Personnel Administration Manager. Especially since the services of the company's employees now represent 660,000 hours of work. Over 15,000 hours of overtime. Making 675,000 hours. Distributed over more than 40 different timetables. With 15 types of hourly bonuses. All of which is a source of stress for the payroll managers, and amply justifies the use of a computerised system. The choice of system could not be improvised, and was preceded by a painstaking process of examining the products of the main players in the market. UNITIME from IDtech emerged victorious from the contest. "Despite its higher price and, at the time, a lack of recognition of its producer in the industrial world in the field of time management and worker pay, it was the most flexible solution. And IDtech was prepared to refine the product to suit the contours and constraints of our company," clarifies Michel Tambour.

Working together

GSK Bio admits that it was a difficult, demanding and meticulous customer from the start. "The solution had to respect the habits and routines of our professional operation," emphasises Alain Goossens, Salaries and Wages Manager. This means that it had to be able to mesh with an extremely decentralised organisation, working with the existing access control technology. It had to cover all three sites, handling hundreds of employees, not to mention temporary workers from six different agencies, from clock-out to payslip, and it had to meet future needs. And, the overriding requirement, it had to provide benefit to the workers. Quite a programme. And quite a challenge for IDtech.

The success of the project is the fruit of an unusual degree of complicity between customer and supplier. The result of a new commercial culture, we might add. And the consequence of a period during which the expertise of both sides was fused to design a unique implementation, with an innovative interactive terminal which GSK Bio's workers can use to find out their exact situation in terms of hours worked, timetable, holidays etc. In other words: a global solution designed by people for people. Which, despite its 150 time-clocks and 50 interactive terminals, goes beyond the "time is money" ethos to reach an as yet unequalled human dimension.

Time rediscovered

"The management was quite right to choose this system," says Jean Maroutaeff, a trade union representative, who took part in the meetings defining the system, "to make sure that it would not become a kind of supergrass, spying on the workers' movements." The workers now see UNITIME as an ally. Or, more precisely, an arbitrator. Because, as Jean Maroutaeff explains, "the staff badges keep the clocking in and out operations discreet. While the centralised management of anomalies removes the risk of their interpretation according to the person's department, putting everyone on the same footing."

The same enthusiasm can be found a few buildings further on, in Packaging. Liliane Laurent, Production Supervisor, is also responsible for planning the work of the 100 or so employees who package the vaccines, working in three teams, five days a week or six if need be. She would not want to return to the workload of the old system. "It monopolised my attention all day long. But with UNITIME, it's all done in half an hour in the morning," she declares, happy to be able to move on so much more quickly to more interesting and more productive tasks. Freed from the worries of a schedule "where the slightest change took a long time. Now, I just enter the changes and UNITIME takes care of the rest," explains Liliane Laurent. And the packaging workers can consult the schedule regularly, using an interactive terminal in their staff-room. From "time is money" to "time is leisure" with UNITIME.

Passing the test every day

It's not easy to find even the smallest fault with UNITIME! This is a reflection of the gentle pace of the implementation, introduced in gradual stages following a test period. This is where the professionalism shown by IDtech in its relationships with its customers can be measured. "The company listened to our needs. They were able to transform our proposals, comments and suggestions into relevant responses.

Unitime

"And all within the agreed price," notes Alain Goossens with satisfaction. "And no sign of a flop," adds Jean Maroutaeff. Quite a job, given the constraints imposed by GSK Bio.

Like, for example, respecting the clocking-in card the employees were used to, and using some 250 administrators to operate UNITIME in the various parts of the company. A record. In its daily use, the system reveals the strong foundations of IDtech's approach to attendance management -above all, in human terms- and increases the efficiency of the enterprise. The interactive terminal brings a friendly touch to the relationship between the company and its employees. Who can be confident that the hours they work are being handled with the proven fairness of UNITIME. The morale created by this climate of trust contributes greatly to the notion of "Total Quality". The objective of GSK Bio. As of any successful modern business.

Alain Goossens also emphasises the role UNITIME can play in managing absences, a vital indicator of the health of the company, revealing occasional or structural staffing problems. UNITIME facilitates and accelerates the detection of anomalies.

UNITIME has also caused a revolution in the sphere of pay. For the better, once again. "It accelerates our procedures, clarifies situations, standardises the appreciation criteria and harmonises operations," explain Micaela Biolghini and Elisabeth Taymans of the Salaries and Wages department. And yet they admit that "at the end of the first training session, we didn't think we would cope, the system seemed so complicated. But now we couldn't manage without it." Micaela and Elisabeth also underline IDtech's efforts to bring UNITIME into line with the environment of the company. Now, after several years using the system, they consider that UNITIME still has a lot to offer, and is far from having exhausted its potential.

These declarations and testimonials, among others, confirm (if confirmation were still necessary) the qualities of UNITIME. As does the consistent success of IDtech. GSK Bio could not have chosen better for its customers, employees and shareholders. Not to mention those whose life expectancy depends on the ever-greater efficiency with which GSK Bio develops and produces its human vaccines. A race to which UNITIME, in a small and indirect way, contributes.