Customer Stories
Synerion Solutions for the Manufacturing Sector at Palram
About Palram
Palram Industries Ltd. is a leading multinational manufacturer of thermoplastic sheets, architectural roofing systems, and self-assembly finished products. Palram sheets are primarily made from polycarbonate and PVC using extrusion and are designed for various applications in construction, architecture, agriculture, advertising, DIY, and industrial processing.
Palram was founded in 1963 and has been a publicly traded company since 1994. In the global polycarbonate sheet sector, Palram ranks among the top three companies in the Western world by production and sales, alongside companies such as: SABIC and Covestro (formerly Bayer). Palram estimates its global market share in the Western polycarbonate sheet sector to be approximately 10%.
Palram is recognized as a leading and reputable manufacturer in the global corrugated PVC sheet industry.
The company’s headquarters and main production facility are in Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan, Israel, with additional offices and manufacturing plants across Europe, America, Africa, Australia, and Asia.
The headquarters and plant in Israel employ approximately 500 workers under various employment agreements, including: hourly, monthly, global, and shift-based contracts. The production departments operate 24/7 across three shifts.
Challenges
As a labor-intensive organization with a diverse workforce, many of whom work shifts, attendance management was a complex process that required manual reporting and corrections at the end of each month. This situation created significant bottlenecks in the payroll preparation process within the payroll and human resources departments.
The ongoing challenges with missing reports, monitoring employees, correcting reports, and approving overtime hours led to a strategic decision: Managers, even at the team manager level, should be equipped with advanced tools for real-time planning, managing, and monitoring shifts, attendance, and absences, while ensuring full protection of employee rights and compliance with labor laws.
The Solutions
Palram - Upgrading the Attendance Management System with Synerion Direct
Palram is a long-time customer of Synerion solutions for managing their employee system. Until the transition to the latest version of the system, only a few department managers utilized the self-service interface to manage employee attendance, and the system was not used as a daily operational tool.
To enhance management, control, and monitoring capabilities, a comprehensive upgrade process was conducted, improving the system’s features, and adding new modules.
Self-Service for Managers - Synerion Direct
As part of the upgrade process, it was decided to implement the Synerion Direct self-service tool for headquarters employees and plant managers, starting with line managers. The tool allows employees and managers to easily and efficiently update attendance reports and manage absence requests.
The organizational tree was updated and rebuilt with a detailed structure, defining supervisors for each employee. Supervisors are responsible for managing, updating, and monitoring attendance, overtime, and other related tasks.
Synerion Direct transfers responsibility for these tasks to employees and supervisors, making it an integral daily work tool. This reduces bottlenecks in the payroll department and significantly shortens the month-end closing process:
“Month-end closing has become simple and efficient. “Instead of three days of frantic work with piles of paperwork to complete data, all information now reaches the payroll department computerized, processed, and approved — no later than the 2nd of the month at 12:00.”
Hasik Barber – Human Resources Manager, Palram Israel
Absence Management
As part of the upgrade, the absence management system was added, allowing managers easy access to employees’ entitlement balances and previously approved absence requests. The system helps make informed decisions about approving new requests while ensuring optimal coverage of workloads.
Transferring the responsibility for approving absences to managers has streamlined the process: Employees contact their team leader directly, who is responsible for deciding whether to approve or reject the request. As a result, the number of calls to the Human Resources department has been significantly reduced.
Work Scheduling and Notification System for Labor Policy Violations
Another significant upgrade is the implementation of the Synerion Scheduling system for work scheduling on the production floor, specifically for 24/7 shift workers.
Before implementing the system, work scheduling was done manually using paperwork or Excel sheets, with a basic structure planned for only a week: two days of morning shifts, two days of evening shifts, two days of night shifts, and two days off. This schedule was printed and posted on bulletin boards, but employees frequently updated the shifts, making the table quickly outdated and less relevant.
Today, with the Synerion Scheduling system, work arrangements are planned two weeks in advance, enabling better planning and organization for both managers and employees. Managers can easily identify available employees for replacement while ensuring compliance with legal requirements.
Additionally, the Synerion Alerts system prevents non-compliant employee assignments with labor laws and notifies managers of exceptions, such as nearing the legal overtime limit.
It is important to note that the work arrangement determines the employee’s salary, not the signing of the attendance card. In the event of a shift change, the system can be easily updated, and the change is immediately recorded for salary calculation, eliminating the need for later corrections.
According to the implementation team:
“The implementation of the work scheduling system was aimed at creating a structured and pre-arranged planning process. A key challenge was getting managers and employees to adopt the system, and we succeeded in doing so. Since the transition to computerized planning, there has been a significant decrease in the number of changes to work schedules from both sides.”
Explains Hasik Barber, Human Resources Manager at Palram Israel.
“The entire overtime issue is now managed and controlled in an organized manner. Managers have a clear picture of the amount of overtime their employees have worked, with the ability to view the amount of hours used, check reasons for exceptions, and investigate any relevant issues. At the end of the process, all information is transferred to the payroll department in an organized manner, for accurate salary calculations.
I also use the dashboard, which allows me to easily identify exceptions, alerts, or any issue that requires attention, including the ability to drill down to find the root of the problem. In addition, I can know in real time who is present, especially in emergency situations.”
Benefits and Impacts:
- Daily use of various tools that enable managers to plan, control, and update efficiently
- A process and conceptual change that shifts managerial responsibility for employees to direct managers
- Agile, flexible, and efficient operations
- A tool tailored and updated to meet labor law requirements
- Information-driven absence approval to avoid under-coverage
- Easy data preparation for accurate salary calculation.
- Real-time employee attendance tracking
- Reduced paperwork and administrative tasks in payroll and HR
