fob reader with easy access to usage info

[agt24]

I‘m consulting on a project to automate the time card system for a mid-sized livestock operation in central Nebraska. They have 200 employees at nearly 50 different sites in central Nebraska. They currently clock in and out using either a punch clock (Time Force IQ 300 model) or they just write down their hours on paper. This information is sent back to the central office where hours and pay are calculated. The system is problematic as sometimes employees forget to clock in or out, clock out twice, or misrepresent their hours.

All employees have key fobs and all site have a fob reader manufactured by DMP that controls door access to the site.

The goal of this project is to replace the paper time clock system with a new system using the existing fob. One option is to access the information on the DMP fob readers and use it to calculate hours. Our research so far suggests this information is difficult to access as DMP systems are proprietary. The DMP dealers in central Nebraska that we have spoke with do not have the training or expertise to help us access the data from the readers programmatically.

 

An alternative solution is to install new fob readers at each of the 50+ work sites that would read the employee’s existing fobs and be used for clocking in and out. This information would need to be immediately transmitted to back to the central office in a standard format over intranet, POTS, or cellular (some work sites are very remote). The information would then be imported into the company database. In-house developers would handle all of the processing from there.

We’re looking for either:

a) Assistance on how to access information from the DMP system.

b) Recommendations for a parallel fob reading system. The company prefers open source solution that would be easy to customize by in-house IT staff.