Shop Floor Time Clock for Fabrication Shops

FabWise Kiosk is a shared terminal time clock built for the shop floor — not an office. Workers tap their name, select a job, declare a task, and clock in. The interface is large-touch-target, designed for gloved hands and quick interactions. No typing, no individual passwords, no waiting. Clock-out takes fifteen seconds and includes a meal break declaration. Every record feeds directly into payroll export and job cost tracking.

Why Standard Time Clocks Fail on the Shop Floor

Traditional punch clocks capture one thing: that a worker was present. They don't know which job the worker was on. They don't capture task breakdowns. They produce a raw presence record that someone has to manually reconcile against job assignments at week-end.

Web-based time tracking tools designed for remote workers are worse — they assume the worker has a device, an individual login, and a comfortable place to type. None of those assumptions hold in a fabrication environment.

FabWise Kiosk was built for the specific constraints of a shop floor: shared access, physical environment, multiple jobs running simultaneously, workers who don't have individual work computers. The interface reflects those constraints at every design decision.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook notes that production occupations — the majority of fab shop workers — are among the least likely to have individual computer access during work hours. A time clock designed for this reality must work without it.

How the Kiosk Works

The kiosk runs on a tablet or touchscreen mounted at the shop entrance, break room, or wherever your current time clock lives. It stays logged in permanently — there are no admin credentials exposed on the kiosk surface.

Clock-in flow:
1. Worker taps their name from a scrollable list of active workers
2. Selects the job they're starting on (from active jobs in your account)
3. Selects the task (welding, fitting, finishing, rework, etc.)
4. Taps "Clock in" — record created instantly

Clock-out flow:
1. Worker taps their name
2. Taps "Clock out"
3. If their shift schedule includes a meal break: prompted to confirm whether they took it
4. Record closed

The entire clock-in flow takes under 30 seconds. Clock-out takes under 15 seconds.

Job Tagging at Clock-In — The Critical Difference

The most important thing a shop floor time clock can do is capture which job a worker is on — not just that they're present.

FabWise Kiosk requires job selection at clock-in. Workers choose from your active job list. The job tag is part of the shift record from the moment of capture. There is no "general" or "shop time" fallback that lets hours accumulate without attribution.

This directly enables job costing: every hour is tagged to a job in real time, eliminating the end-of-week reconstruction step entirely.

When a worker moves between jobs during a shift, they clock out of the first job and clock into the second. The transition is recorded with a timestamp on each record. Multi-job shifts are handled correctly without any manual reconciliation.

Task-Level Capture Without Complexity

Beyond job tagging, FabWise Kiosk supports task selection at clock-in. Tasks are the sub-operations within a job: welding, fitting, inspection, finishing, rework. Tracking at the task level gives you the breakdown that makes future quoting accurate.

Task lists are configured per account by the admin — you define the tasks that matter for your shop, and workers select from that list. The interface doesn't require workers to type or remember codes; they tap from a short, relevant list.

Task-level data flows into the same time records as job data — visible in the admin dashboard, exportable for job cost analysis, filterable by task type.

Meal Break Declarations — Built Into the Clock-Out Flow

Meal break tracking is a compliance and cost issue for most fabrication shops. Workers who work through meal breaks need to be recorded differently from workers who took their break. Supervisors need to see which workers flagged a missed break for review.

FabWise handles this at clock-out without adding friction. If a worker's shift schedule includes a scheduled meal break, the clock-out flow includes a single-tap declaration: "Did you take your meal break?" Workers who took it confirm; workers who worked through it flag it. The supervisor sees flagged records immediately in the admin dashboard.

The declaration is part of the shift record — not a separate report, not a form to fill out later. It happens at clock-out, in the normal flow, in under five seconds.

For shops in states with mandatory meal break laws, this record is your documentation. Your payroll provider uses it for compliance calculations. FabWise captures the record; your provider handles the compliance math.

Supervisor View — Real-Time Floor Visibility

The FabWise admin dashboard shows which workers are currently clocked in, which jobs they're on, and how long they've been on each. This is real-time: any supervisor with admin access can see the current state of the floor without asking anyone.

When a worker clocks in or out, the dashboard updates. When a meal break is flagged, the supervisor sees it. When a record needs a correction — wrong job, forgot to clock out — the supervisor can attach a correction to the record with their name and reason. The original capture is preserved.

See time tracking for the full supervisor correction workflow and how it integrates with payroll approval.

Setup and Installation

The kiosk runs on any modern tablet with a browser. FabWise recommends iPad (10" or larger) mounted in a secure enclosure near the shop entrance. No app installation required — the kiosk is a web application that runs in the browser in full-screen mode.

Setup involves:
1. Mounting the tablet in a fixed location (FabWise works with any standard tablet enclosure)
2. Pointing the browser to your FabWise kiosk URL
3. Configuring your worker list, active jobs, and task list in the admin dashboard
4. Workers start clocking in — no training required beyond "tap your name"

FabWise's onboarding includes same-day kiosk setup as part of the standard onboarding package. The NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership recommends no more than 30 minutes of worker training for new time-capture systems — FabWise kiosk typically requires less.

Kiosk vs. Workstation — Two Surfaces, One Record

FabWise has two capture surfaces: Kiosk (shared) and Workstation (individual). Both write to the same shift record database. A supervisor reviewing shifts in the admin dashboard sees a unified record regardless of which surface captured it.

Shops typically use the kiosk for floor workers and the workstation for supervisors, office staff, or anyone with an individual workstation. The two can be used simultaneously in the same shop — they don't conflict, and the data merges cleanly into a single pay period record.

For the full time-tracking workflow from clock-out to payroll export, see the time tracking and payroll export feature pages.