Employee management software for factories with shift workers
PeopleMuster is employee management software for factories that run shift workers. Each rotating shift is a named window assigned per person, and punches come off a ZKTeco fingerprint terminal on the factory network. Late minutes are measured against each worker's own shift. Leave, holidays, the device register and onboarding checklists sit in the same system, for $3 per person per month.
The shift pattern
Two or three rotating shifts, each a named window with a start and an end. Morning, mid and night are separate definitions rather than one office day with exceptions.
Assignment is per person, with a start date, a duration and a record of who assigned it. Assignment history is its own tab, and it's what you read when somebody disputes which shift they were on six weeks ago.
Rotation is a deliberate act. A supervisor assigns next month's windows, and the history records who moved whom, and when.
How attendance is taken on the floor
A ZKTeco fingerprint terminal on the factory network. PeopleMuster connects to it by IP address and pulls new punches on a schedule, and the attendance page says how many minutes ago that ran. Fingerprints stay on the terminal; PeopleMuster receives only who punched and when.
Every person on the floor has a device user, and every device user is mapped to a system user. The mapping page shows total mappings, device users and how many people are still unmapped. On a floor of two hundred, that unmapped count is the number to watch in week one.
Late minutes are calculated against the assigned shift. Someone on the midday window arriving at eleven is early, and the same clock time on a morning window is an hour late. One company start time would get both wrong.
Missed punches go through manual punch requests, with approval. Gloves, queues and a sticky sensor produce a steady trickle of these, and they belong on the record rather than in a supervisor's notebook.
Office and supervisory staff can use the second path. Once an admin switches on browser check-in, a dashboard card opens around each person's shift, and the record is the same.
The number factories argue about
Changeover. How many minutes the line stood still between one shift walking out and the next one being counted in.
Attendance gives you the measurable half of that: late minutes per person, an on-time rate, a late-arrivals-only filter, and a split of present, absent, partial and leave. Partial is the bucket to watch, because it's where a half-covered shift shows up.
The other number is working hours, reported as an average and as a distribution. A histogram makes a shift that keeps running short obvious in a way a monthly total never does.
Both export as CSV over any date range, for any group of people, so whoever runs pay works from the same hours the supervisor saw.
Which modules run here
Switched on
- Attendance
- On-time rate, late minutes and the manual punch queue.
- Shifts
- Named windows assigned per person, with assignment history.
- Holidays
- A company calendar that attendance respects.
- Leave
- Quota-based, per type, with approvals and usage analytics.
- Devices
- An asset register with serials, health and assignment history.
- Checklists
- Onboarding and exit routines, run as tracked processes against a person.
- Support desk
- A route for floor staff to raise an HR or equipment question.
Left off
- Daily recap
- Hours per project mean little on a production line. The terminal is the record.
- Meetings
- Built for recorded client calls, and a floor supervisor runs none.
- Clients
- A client directory belongs to project work, not to a shift.
Questions people ask
Can one terminal handle three shifts?
Yes. Every punch is read against the shift assigned to that worker. Morning, mid and night crews share one terminal, and late minutes stay correct for each.
Are fingerprints stored in PeopleMuster?
No. Fingerprints stay on the terminal. The sync receives only the device user, the device serial and the punch time.
What if a worker forgets to scan out?
The record shows the gap, and a manual punch request corrects it through an approval step rather than an edit nobody sees.
How do we spot a shift that keeps running short?
Open the working-hours histogram. A shift that consistently runs short stands out there in a way a monthly total never shows.
What does it cost for a factory?
$3 per person per month, with every module included and no tiers. There's no seat minimum and no setup fee, and we set up the terminal sync, shifts and roles with you.