Contractor Dunne Group estimates that it is saving £150,000 a year in wrongly paid wages after installing facial recognition technology on its construction sites.

Above: Aurora ClockFace

The system is able to ensure that the company only pays those who actually turn up to site. But it has other benefits too, Dunne has found.

Dunne uses the ClockFace biometric time and attendance system for construction sites, from facial recognition specialist Aurora.

Dunne Group office manager Scott Mitchell says: “By using ClockFace on our sites we can be sure that no one is able to clock anyone else in or out. Every week on our bigger sites there are a number of absences, and if we don’t have a reliable method of keeping track of them, there will be a couple that get through the net.

“So ClockFace is essentially saving us money by preventing overpayment. That equates to a bare minimum of £300 a week per site, and at any one time we’ve probably got 10 sites active. So we save up to around £3,000 a week – which also means the new units pay for themselves very quickly.”

The system requires users to enter a pin code and stand in front of the hardware for a few seconds while their identification is verified.

There are various software packages available in conjunction with ClockFace. Dunne selected the ClockFace Manager package, which enables the company to gather data collected through the hardware as well as storing and managing personnel details, viewing attendance and generating reports to gauge activity of individuals, trades and subcontractors.

“Dunne Group has been using the ClockFace system since 2005. For our first few years we were using punch clocks,” Scott Mitchell says. “But they’re not incredibly reliable, because there’s nothing to stop one person from going up to the clock and clocking 10 or 20 people out. We were looking for something that could help us eliminate that with a bit of certainty – we wanted to be sure that the person clocking in or out was verifiably that individual.

“So for our first major project, the Silverburn shopping centre outside Glasgow, we did our research, and Aurora’s ClockFace was exactly what we were looking for at the time. It’s proven so successful that every six months or so we end up buying another unit because we’ve got another decent-sized site kicking off. So we now have 16 units in total.”

The ClockFace Manager software, integrated with Dunne’s payroll system, allows a range of reports to be generated, including absence reports, which show who wasn’t on site that week.

“You can also do specific trade reports, which show you exactly how many, for example, joiners or labourers are working at that time,” Mr Mitchell says. “That is really helpful for future site management and planning, working out budgets and who is needed or available to work, and where.”