Lantmännen Doggy
When given a choice, the cat will always choose the cream
Lantmännen Doggy chose ProMark as a cost-effective replacement for the old time & attendance system.
ProMark replaces complex management
Owners of cats and dogs are probably familiar with Lantmännen Doggy, a fine old brand of food for cats and dogs which is sold by the Lantmännen group. The company’s head office is in Vårgårda, which is also where the food is manufactured in two factories. Time reporting for factory staff used to be a major undertaking. Certainly, the system worked; but a lot of time and resources were spent on manual effort. Before salaries could be paid, someone first had to review all the clocking cards in order to check for errors.
Supervisors had to go and talk to employees and find out what had happened in each individual case, correct the cards, sign them off and then send them by post to the payroll office in Falkenberg. At this office, the cards were all stamped manually in order to enter them in another system which processed the information so that staff could then be given the money owing to them.
Maybe there is nothing remarkable about this. Maybe lots of workplaces have the same kind of system in place. But when there were no longer any spare parts for the system and the only person who could support it was about to resign, there was no way out: the old system had to go. Margareta Larsson, HR Manager, initiated a process in order to investigate what systems were in use at the other companies in the group.
“I thought straight away that we had to have a system that we could not only use ourselves, but that could also be applied throughout the group. Our new system also had to be simple and stable, with reliable support available, and the whole set-up had to be cost-effective. Those were my absolute minimum requirements,” she explains.
Following a group review, it was found that Lantmännen subsidiaries Cerealia, Kronfågel and Unibake were using the ProMark T & A system from Mark Information, and that seemed to tick all the boxes.
"So we went to Cerealia in Laholm, had a look at ProMark, formed our opinions. And since then we have just got on with the job," says Margareta.
Fast and efficient implementation
Group Purchasing selected ProMark, a contract was drawn up and the implementation project got under way in late 2008. In four months, Mark Information has installed ProMark hardware and software and provided training in the system for three people: an administrator, plus the payroll administrators at both factories.
"We had a really instructive trainer here for three full days. She taught our administrators how to add schedules, calculate overtime and night shifts and make corrections. They also have the option of phoning our trainer at Mark Information and asking her for advice. Mark Information have always been there to help us."
A test team helped to test all system functions. The system was rolled out in two stages. On 1 March 2009, all the employees – some 95 users – migrated to the new system.
In April, ProMark will be run for the first time in enhanced mode. Instead of the entire procedure involving corrections and stamps, a file containing all the information will now simply be sent directly to the payroll office in Falkenberg. "This will free up around ten hours a month by using this system every time we compile accounts," calculates Margareta Larsson.
Results better than expected
According to Margareta Larsson, the employees have adopted ProMark really well and are very pleased with the intuitive, transparent system. Now they can view their own balances in real time and keep tabs on their own working hours more effectively.
"People can sometimes worry when changes are made to anything which affects salaries, and we had in fact expected some questions to be asked. But instead, the staff have actually needed hardly any assistance and have adopted the system more or less automatically. Everything has gone really well; much better than we expected, actually," says Margareta Larsson.
Facts about Lantmännen Doggy
- Core business: Animal feed manufacture
- Number of employees: 95
- Payroll system: HR Plus
- ProMark modules: ProTime, ProManagement, ProHost
- Project manager: Christian Lundstedt
Published May 2, 2009
