Dhaka is the capital city of Bangladesh housing approximately 18.2 million population in just half the size of Singapore. The density of this city is simply incomprehensible even by the people who are used to it, the locals. Vehicles and people intermingle organically on the same roads, pedestrians selling items persistently to the passengers stuck in the monstrous traffic jam, vehicles blazing honks at each other all the times forming a deafening melody to the unsuspecting ears, leaving a visitor like me baffled at the chaotic nature of the city. At a glance, space is an illusion and everything appears to be under construction but amidst all the noise and disorganization, Dhaka is on the rise with various developments happening inside the city such as the buildout of its new township of Purbachal, and the constant demands of its labor expertise to fulfill the global requirements on textile production. As one of the major world producers of textile/garment industry, Bangladesh is currently having 3.5 million workers serving this industry, and apparently for them, biometrics is THE solution in achieving automation.
In early December 2017, we’ve had the pleasure of visiting our long time exclusive distributor, General Automation Ltd., at their head office located in the heart of Dhaka. The objectives of the visit were to share our experiences with their sales and marketing team, to introduce them to the latest cloud solutions that can take automation to another level and to provide technical training to their technical and development team as well as updating them with the latest developments in FingerTec products and solutions. Apart from the accurate biometrics hardware, the crucial element in the entire system is the software to manage all of the data, and the visit presented opportunities for the team to strengthen their knowledge on the products and the technical aspects of FingerTec offerings.
During this visit, General Automation arranged for us to visit some of the key clients such as a site visit to one of the largest garment factories in the country, A-One Polar Factory belonging to the Micro Fibre Group. At only one factory, the group has more than 8000 workers working shifts around the clock all year long and automation with biometrics is the only solution, viable to manage such large resources. The deployment of Face ID 4 throughout the the factory has been able to reduce arduous tasks assigned to the HR department and making the entire data collection process smooth and accurate. The attendance clocking for each staff is done accurately in less than 2 seconds and all data is captured automatically for further processing. I couldn’t imagine the mountainous task HR personnel needs to tackle during payroll if it’s done without automation.
Another major client that we’ve had the pleasure of visiting was one of the largest commercials banks in the country, City Bank. They are having 112 branches nationwide with over 5000 employees. And with that many employees spread across the country, City Bank deploys FingerTec solutions to have a centralized database and improved operation. There are various other deployments of fingerprint, face and card solution nationwide by General Automation Ltd., which is known to have great connections and rapport with major clients across the country.
Managing Director of General Automation Ltd, Mr Saiful Haque Kamal expects continuous incline in the demand of biometrics in the country because looking at the size of human resources in Bangladesh, the demand for technologies to manage it is comparably large. Biometrics system is the only solution that can provide accountable data at all times on top of promoting process automation for large corporation and General Automation Ltd. is definitely ready to knock on more doors to create more opportunities to introduce biometrics automation into the country’s workforce.
TimeTec Computing Sdn. Bhd. would like to extend its sincerest gratitude to General Automation Ltd. especially to Mr. Saiful Haque Kamal, Mr. Md. Reazuddin Biswas and Mdm. Shamima for extending a first class hospitality in accepting Mr. Arsalan Miri, Senior Technical Manager and I to the very interesting city filled with amazing people, Dhaka.
