The Truth Behind Myths Surrounding Biometric Time Clocks

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Written by Allied Time.

Biometric time clocks allow HR departments to more accurately track their employees’ hours than traditional punch or card swipe time clocks. Employees can clock in and clock out using a unique physical characteristic – such as a fingerprint or facial recognition. This makes it impossible for friends to do “buddy punching” for them and almost completely eliminates the potential for fraud.

Employees can also benefit from the use of biometric time clocks. They never have to worry about remembering a password or losing a swipe card. All they need to do is quickly scan their fingerprint or other feature into the system and they are clocked in or out. They can quickly get in and out of work and feel confident that their hours are being recorded accurately.

Despite the benefits for employers and employees, some people are skeptical about the use of a biometric employee time clock. Some of this fear comes from misinformation or not understanding how these machines work. Here is a look at the real answers to some of the most common concerns about biometric time clocks:

Myth: Companies can use the information they collect to snoop on employees.

Fact: Biometric time clocks collect information in such a way that it would be impossible for a person to use this information to spy on another person. For example, when a fingerprint is scanned by a reader, the image of the fingerprint isn’t stored; it measures the distance between certain points on the fingerprint and stores this information as zeros and ones. There is no way to take this information and reconstruct it to show a person’s fingerprint.

Myth: Biometric time clocks are too expensive for most businesses.

Fact: Small businesses can benefit from biometric time clocks. By collecting and storing timekeeping information digitally and automatically importing this information into the timekeeping system, biometric time clocks significantly reduce the amount of time spent by HR and accounting employees on payroll. For small businesses, this means that these employees can focus on other projects.

Myth: Biometric time clocks don’t work in many environments such as places where there is a lot of dust, dirt and grease that can obscure fingerprints.

Fact: Many of today’s fingerprint time clocks are designed to work even in harsh environmental conditions. Some readers can even effectively scan the fingerprints of a person who is wearing a glove. In addition, devices such as facial recognition or retinal scan time clocks are not impacted by the environmental conditions.

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Allied Time brings customers the most technologically-advanced time clock solutions on the market today at low prices. Visit their website to see their entire catalog of employee time clocks available for businesses of all sizes.

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The Benefits of Industrial Cooling

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When the temperature outside starts to get extremely hot, there’s nothing quite like finding an AC unit and plopping yourself down in front of it until things start to feel better. Sometimes, these machines are essential for keeping yourself from the dangers of getting overheated.

That’s not the only way these machines make life easier though. If you’ve ever used a portable dehumidifier before, you probably already know this. Without such a machine, you’d most likely never be able to get the water out of a room after flood damage or something similar.

This is just one way industrial cooling makes life easier for us. If you’ve ever worked in a factory before, you know that—between the machines and the large number of people—it’s easy for things to get extremely hot extremely quickly.

Speaking of extremely hot temperatures, have you ever been in a server room? Servers are the computers charged with hosting all kinds of information, like the kind necessary to run a website. This job isn’t easy, though, which is why servers create so much heat around the clock. If industrial AC units weren’t surrounding them, they would overheat and your favorite websites would crash immediately.

As you can see, AC is about more than just comfort; it’s one of the most important technologies we have.

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A Guide to How Diesel Locomotives Work

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Starting up a diesel locomotive is a lot different than starting up an ordinary car. In fact, it’s a lot more complicated. Here is a breakdown from beginning to end on how these industrial mammoths run.

The first step in the process is entering the cabin and powering up the locomotive. A knife switch is flipped which connects the battery source to the circuit breaker. Then, the switches on the circuit breaker panel are all turned on by the engineer. This powers the entire vehicle. Because of the immense amount of power that is needed to start up a locomotive, a portable power source is required in many cases to get the engine to even turn over.

The next step is for the engineer to prime the fuel system and engage the motors. Once the engine begins to crank over, the locomotive is ready to begin a forward motion.

The engineer then heads to the back of the train to release the hand brake once the brake system has been pressurized.

Upon approval by the conductor, the engineer then begins moving forward, ringing the bells and air horns to signal the motion.

Once the locomotive starts moving, the engineer has to work the throttle control.  The higher the position of the throttle – also called a notch – the more voltage is produced, therefore increasing the speed.

While the train is in constant motion, the computer inside the engine begins its magic by automatically adjusting the fuel injectors to match the engine power required.

If the engineer needs to slow the train down, he can utilize the brake control which work alongside the motors. The control creates air pressure within the cylinders of the brakes to apply the pressure to the brake pads.

For maintenance purposes the engineer has to continuously check the readouts that are displayed by sensors all around the train. This is a vital tool for the engineer as a problem can be scoped out and addressed before a major accident occurs. For instance, if there is an issue with the power, the engineer can utilize a railroad locomotive starter to help restore and somewhat jumpstart it back to life. An engineer that drives a train without the adequate diagnostic readings are putting other people’s lives in danger. Safety precautions are always taught to the engineers to ensure the least amount of risk.

Now that you have an understanding on how a diesel locomotive starts and runs, you now know the immense responsibility placed on the engineer. The fact that trains have continuously progressed and have kept up with technology shows that they continue to play a large role in society.

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How Coating Application Changed the Medical Scene

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Medical device coatings have come a long way in terms of development and application. Years of extensive research have led to a product capable of entering the human body without harming the patient or exposing them to the risks of infection. These coatings vary in form and can be as simple as thin metal or as advanced as pore-laden polymer coating.

Creating the Coating

There are multiple forms of technologies that engineers can use to create the coating. Being such a vital part of the process, the application of the coating must be taken care of with precision and care. A thorough and complete inspection is necessary to check for any potential detrimental effects.  Upon approval by inspectors, the coating is then introduced to the market.

The creation of the coating can be done in various intricate ways such as: PVD thermal evaporation, surface polymerization, spray coating etc. Through all of these methods, viscosity plays a huge role in the delivery of the liquid to the surface, therefore determining its efficiency.

The Importance of Coating

The human body’s defense mechanism is extremely complex. The insertion of medical devices will naturally provoke the body to defend itself. Certain plastics, or metals, are compatible with the body but lack the properties which would make them effective. The same goes the other way around where some materials irritate the body but once inserted, would generate a relatively positive response. This is where coating application blossoms.

Minimal irritation and inflammation following placement of the medical device is important for the patient’s well-being. A coated medical device can not only achieve that, but can also: encourage tissue growth and promote a rapid healing process, severely decrease the chance of infection due to device placement, and even manipulate the body’s defense system into “accepting” it. Through rapid-fire advancements, coating applications have become an integral part of medicine.

Flow Control

To improve production processes, new flow control technologies have been produced. This is especially important in the area of liquid spray coating. By utilizing this type of technology, one will see an increase in uniformity which coating is dependent upon.

Wrapping it Up

With today’s advanced coating discoveries, medical science can now apply advanced methods such as thin film evaporation and chemical vapor deposition to technologies giving them the potential to reach new heights.
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Denton Vacuum transforms barriers into thin-film technology breakthroughs for customers across the globe in providing vacuum deposition systems.

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The Emerging Technology Behind Precise Engineering

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Summary: See three industries that have been dramatically affected by improvements in American manufacturing.

The United States is a world leader in emerging technologies and advanced manufacturing techniques. The applications of these technologies are useful in a wide array of industries, and the discoveries are driving science the world over. American manufacturing has made so many aspects of our daily life easier, and continues to push the envelope in future technologies.

Here are three industries that directly benefit from these innovations.

Aerospace

UHV sputter deposition is central to many of the electrical components in an airplane, which can include the skin of the plane itself. The technique applies a film that can be microns in thickness, which is ideal when working with precision instrumentation. One good example is electro-static shielding, which houses navigational components as well as the plane itself.

Medical

Another field seeing improvement measured in leaps and bounds is the field of medicine. The medical manufacturing industry has made major breakthroughs involving plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. One example is the aqueous coating applied to tubing that goes inside the patient’s body. The coating allows the patient to experience minimal discomfort. Coupled with an anti-microbial solution, the patient returns to the hospital fewer times from infections related to those devices.

Optics

PVD thermal evaporation is useful in the production of lenses for eyeglasses. Chemicals used for anti-glare properties must first break down into gaseous form. Those particles are bounced around a sealed chamber, where they eventually come to settle on the lens in an even coating. The coating dries, remains durable, and provides the protection from glare that allows the owner to get around safely.

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Retired Staff Sergeant First to Receive Mechanical Hand

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A retired staff sergeant from Colorado is the world’s first recipient of a major medical breakthrough. Sergeant James Sides lost his hand while disarming an IED he found during his second tour in Afghanistan. Sides went blind in one eye after the bomb detonated close to his body. The blast also took his right hand.

When Sides returned home, he made a healthy recovery but he found basic tasks to be difficult. The Alfred Mann Foundation, which specializes in testing revolutionary robotics for medical use, found Sides and offered to give him a new device they’d created. They surgically implanted a device within Sides’ forearm that reads his muscle movements.

That device sends a signal to the robotic hand that he wears, which allows him to move each fingertip individually. He says he still has to look at an object and think about doing something before it happens, but Sides can manipulate the world around him in ways he thought were lost to him.

Opening a bottle of water, reaching for his wallet and more everyday tasks are far more manageable now that he has a hand that can move with him.

Prosthetics are a tricky piece of technology because it’s difficult to replicate the kind of motion that we have naturally. Even Sides is limited to three ranges of motion. The good news is that this technology is deployable now, and is beginning to get the publicity it deserves thanks to the work of Steve Doctrow and the team at Rogers & Cowan. This test includes six other individuals, but the hope is that this technology will soon see circulation in the general public.

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