Track your employees with 'Logik'

Bob Mills is one of the leading suppliers of dust sheets, laminated dust sheets, stockinette, etc, throughout the UK. The company has its manufacturing unit at Rajapalayam in Tamil Nadu. The products manufactured in Rajapalayam are exported. A serious concern was raised when the sales team working abroad ordered for a huge quantity of material but failed to generate revenue. In course of time, it was found that the sales team was idling and had stocked the material in a warehouse. When there was no revenue, the organization caught the sales team. Then, the organization came to know that some employees were not meeting the clients at regular intervals but were informing the company that they were doing so. There has been a decline in existing material orders too. In such a situation, Bob Mills management was in need of a solution which could monitor the movements of the stocks as well as of the employees.

PRELIMINARY EFFORT
Initially, Bob Mills hired a private audit firm to monitor the stock movement as well as the employees. However, the initiative failed as the cost payable to the audit firm to monitor each person was huge. Holding a sales team-—huge and wide-spread-Bob Mills cannot afford the money demanded by the audit firm even though there were good results.

A TECH-SAVVY MODUS OPERANDI
In such a scenario, Chennai based Logik Systems was approached to address the issue. "“We were asked to find a solution which was one-time investment, cost-effective and could monitor both the material as well as individual members,"” said B Muthukumaraswamy, CEO, Logik Systems. “We initi ally plan ned to create a tracking solu tion and ins tall it in laptops. However, laptops may help only in monitoring the stocks but not the employees,” Muthukumaraswamy further added. Sometime later, Logik Systems, with a fifteen-member team sketched and came out with a solution for tracking both the employees as well as the stocks.

ANDROID APPLICATION
Logik Systems, after many levels of discussions, decided to create an Android application and install it in the mobile device of the employees so that their exact location can be monitored. “"We created the application in a way that it should not only trace the location of the employee but also helps the employee to enter the purchase order from the client’s office,”" said Muthukumaraswamy, who further added that the application will also give complete history of employee’s day-to-day activities as well as daily stock movements.

CHALLENGES
Logik Systems initially had a great challenge in deploying the application. "“This is a highly confidential activity as any employee will not entertain to track himself. The employees have to be tracked without their cognizance which was a great challenge for us,"” recalled Muthukumaraswamy. “Since we were going to install the application in their mobile devices, it was a privacy concern and any individual can think this as a breach of privacy and this may result in bad impression over the employer or trigger them to quit their job,” added Muthukumaraswamy. He further said, since it was a monitoring system and privacy being the issue, the details of the application can only be shared with the top-level management of any organization but not with the middle-level.

ISSUES SORTED OUT
The employees were informed that a new application has been created to monitor the stock-movement and were asked to install it in their mobiles. However, the location tracking application was embedded along with the application created for stock-movement. When the stock-movement application is installed in the mobile device, the location tracking application is also installed without the knowledge of the employee or even the IT department which installs it. However, now, when the employees are recruited, Bob Mills provide mobile devices with the pre-installed stock-movement application.

LESSONS LEARNT
"“While testing the application with one employee, we had some technical dilemmas where two or more mobile signals got inter rupted. Then we customized the application again and addressed the concerns,"” said Muthukumaraswamy. He added that such issues will be rectified in the forthcoming deployments.

FUTURE PLANS
"“With this successful deployment of location as well as stock monitoring solution with Bob Mills, we are get ting more enquiries from marketing department of many IT and IT-related companies. We are also focusing on educational institutions and research depart ments of corporate companies,"” said Muthukumaraswamy.

TESTIMONIAL
“"We are pleased with the application developed by Logik Systems. The Android application helps in getting accurate information of both stocks as well as the location of the employees. This application helps us to catch some of the idling employees. The revenue has also been generated simultaneously and this one-time investment is useful for companies like us which are based in India but have presence across the World. We also planning to deploy the same initiative with our sister concerns and other diversified businesses,”" said A Ramanathan, director, Bob Mills UK.