 When Alexander Forsyth founded A Forsyth & Son in 1890 in Rothes, Scotland he could not have foreseen the scale and diversity to which the operation has grown today.
The Company had humble beginnings as a coppersmiths, serving the Speyside whisky distillation industry. At the outset, the firm employed only a handful of people.
Today, the Forsyth's Group has matured into an internationally recognized engineering, fabrication and construction concern employing in excess of 300 staff.
More than 150 of the staff are employed across 3 sites in Scotland - 2 at Buckie and 1 at Rothes. Managing staff across three separate sites became a lot easier following the introduction of the Time Management System (TMS) supplied by York-based Mitrefinch. Used in conjunction with clocking in facilities situated at each of the sites, TMS enables Forsyths to keep more accurate records of its staff, their hours, time of arrival and departure and whereabouts during their shift. Every member of staff, both office and workshop based clocks in and out at the end of their shift.
With three shift patterns, one for the workshop and two within the offices, maintaining accurate time management records was previously not easy. Staff have taken quickly and easily to the new procedure and as it's ease to operate, little training was required.
Since 1890, Forsyths has continually developed its range of facilities and can now offer clients a turnkey service. Today it offers distillation process engineering, fabrication in carbon and stainless steels and exotic alloys, the design and manufacture of pressure vessels, skids and tankage, electrical and instrumentation systems, shotblasting and epoxy paint systems, scaffolding and building and joinery services including the manufacture and erection of kit homes.
Recently, the Group has also evolved to offer a wide range of services on the onshore and offshore process industries worldwide.
Customers span a broad range of industries and worldwide include whisky and spirit distillation, paper production, petrochemical, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, fine chemicals, biotechnology, offshore oil and gas, power and utilities.
Forsyths has been impressed both with the performance of TMS and also with the level of customer service provided as and when staff managing the system have called for extra support.
Having kept in touch with Mitrefinch since the initial installation of TMS, Forsyths has recently attended one of Mitrefinch's User Group sessions. These sessions are designed to keep customers up to date with Mitrefinch systems development and enhancements as well as provide details about complimentary software.
It was during this recent Mitrefinch User Group session that Forsyths recognized that there was a greater need within the Company for a Human Resource system, coupled with the future planner facility of the latest version of TMS. Mitrefinch's HR Manager system, working together with TMS, would enable the firm to enhance forward planning for holidays, monitoring of sick days and planning skill sets for each shift with the ability to generate point in time reports for HR issues such as pay levels as well as automate mass changes of employee details.
Looking forward, Forsyths plan to integrate Mitrefinch's HR Manager package with its existing TMS software by mid 2003.
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