It's a company that has survived two disruptive technology cycles, three ownership changes and assorted twists and turns since its inception in 1985. But even so, how can you call 20-year-old workforce management software purveyor SmartTime Software Inc. (Framingham, MA) a "company to watch"? It all comes down to its inordinate amount of perseverance, unrelenting aspirations for technology leadership and staunch devotion to the manufacturing space.
The company also believes the market for workforce management remains severely under appreciated, ripe for the picking. For instance, the proliferation of enterprise-wide applications -- which extend from financial planning and supply chain management into plant floor operations -- has missed a component critical to manufacturing success: labor efficiency. "The labor efficiency frontier is the least optimized of all areas at manufacturers," notes Garry Meier, SmartTime chairman, who in June assumed operational control of the privately-held company from long-time CEO Kevin Rhone.
Enter SmartTime's Java-based software, which helps manufacturers take a more proactive approach to labor management. Three modules -- time and labor management, workforce scheduling and decision support -- provide visibility into pending labor requirements to help manufacturers allocate resources to meet ever-changing business demands. It does this through an open architecture that enables manufacturers to marry demand signals from ERP applications and employee activity and availability data to optimize workforce scheduling, see productivity gaps and make just-in-time adjustments, which, in theory, can elevate returns on assets and boost the bottom line.
More importantly, the software requires minimal change in the way labor data is collected: Employees still punch in by normal means (e.g., swiping their badges). The difference comes with the granularity SmartTime provides in tracking the daily activities of employees: Workers enter how much time they spend on individual tasks, which is then rolled up across the organization and assessed within SmartTime or exported to standard business intelligence tools for further analysis.