A 2,000-worker factory does not need one attendance machine — it needs four, and probably not fingerprint. This page shows you how to size devices for your shift pattern
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Indicative only. Site conditions change the final design — we confirm on survey.
The headline product is rarely more than half the installed cost. These are the parts that get left out of budgets.
Sized on shift-change throughput, not headcount. Capacity 30% above headcount.
Load-shedding during shift change means punches that were never recorded — and a payroll dispute the next morning.
TCP/IP to the server. USB collection does not scale past one device.
ZKBioTime or ZKTime. Handles shift rules, overtime and payroll export.
Above roughly 500 workers, turnstiles are what stop buddy punching — a device alone cannot.
SDK or database-level export into your HR or ERP system.
Cards for workers whose biometric consistently fails. There will be some.
Outdoor gates need IP65-rated terminals, not an indoor unit under a shed.
Shows the registered photo on punch — a practical check against credential sharing.
The honest trade-offs.
| Consideration | Fingerprint | Face | Palm (3-in-1) | RFID Card |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Speed per punch | 2–4 sec | ~1 sec | ~1 sec | ~1 sec |
| Works on worn hands | Poor | Yes | Yes — reads veins | Yes |
| Stops buddy punching | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Contactless | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Works in bright sunlight | Yes | Depends on lux rating | Yes | Yes |
| Cost per device | Lowest | Higher | Higher | Lowest |
| Best for | Office staff | Factory gates, high volume | RMG, construction, food | Backup method only |
Gate width and flow. Devices must be spread across the gate, not clustered. Four devices on one wall creates one queue with four heads.
Mounting height. 1.2–1.4m for fingerprint. Face terminals need to suit the range of worker heights — a fixed height that suits 1.7m fails at 1.5m.
Shelter for outdoor gates. An indoor-rated terminal under a tin shed will fail in a monsoon. Outdoor gates need genuine IP65 rating.
Lighting for face terminals. Direct backlight defeats most face terminals. Check the illuminance rating — 30,000 lux handles direct sun, lower ratings do not.
Network to every device. Devices at a remote gate still need to reach the server. Wi-Fi terminals or a cable run — decide before installation, not after.
Enrolment space and time. 2,000 workers at 45 seconds each is 25 hours of enrolment. Plan it as a project with a room, a schedule and staff, not as an afternoon.
Enrolment is the largest hidden cost at rollout. Two thousand workers at roughly 45 seconds each is 25 person-hours before anyone punches in. Multiply by two if you enrol two fingers per worker, which you should.
Ongoing enrolment. RMG workforces turn over heavily. Budget staff time for continuous enrolment of new joiners, not just the initial batch.
Failed reads cost money invisibly. A 5% daily failure rate across 2,000 workers is 100 manual corrections per day for HR. That is a full-time person, and it is the strongest financial argument for palm or face over fingerprint in a production setting.
Cards, if used as backup. Lost cards run 5–10% annually in a large workforce.
Software licensing. ZKTime and basic ZKBioTime are included. Confirm licence terms before committing to a platform — some vendors charge per employee and the cost compounds with headcount.
Every one has cost a real project real money.
A single terminal handling 2,000 workers at 3 seconds each takes 100 minutes. Workers arrive an hour early to queue, and the gate becomes the bottleneck.
Do this: Size on shift-change throughput. Use the calculator with a realistic per-punch time.
Datasheet figures are measured on clean office fingers. Production hands take two to three times longer with repeat attempts.
Do this: Enter 4–6 seconds for a production workforce, or specify face or palm.
Load-shedding during shift change means punches that were never recorded. No software fixes a punch that does not exist — it becomes a payroll dispute.
Do this: Battery-backed devices and a battery-backed power supply. Non-negotiable in Bangladesh.
One worn finger and that worker fails every morning, permanently, and becomes a daily manual correction.
Do this: Enrol at least two fingers per person. It doubles enrolment time and eliminates most daily failures.
A 3,000-template device for 3,000 workers has no room for growth, contractors or seasonal labour — and two fingers per worker halves the effective capacity.
Do this: Specify capacity at least 30% above headcount, and remember multi-finger enrolment consumes template slots.
A device records who punched. It cannot stop one worker punching for three colleagues. Above a few hundred workers, buddy punching is a real cost.
Do this: Pair devices with turnstiles at the main gate. The device verifies; the turnstile enforces.
Attendance fails for one reason more than any other: the device cannot read the workforce it was bought for. Answer these four in order.
Read rates fall far enough that queues form, supervisors override, and buddy-punching returns through the back door. Face or card.
1,000 staff across three shifts is not a 1,000-person problem. It is a peak-minute problem. The calculator above converts shift size into devices properly.
Strong backlight defeats face recognition. Check the wall at survey, not after the unit is on it.
An attendance system that cannot hand clean hours to your payroll is a very expensive clock. Test the export with real data during the trial.
They are network devices on a public-facing wall. Segment them like any other edge device.
Enrolling 800 workers takes longer than installing the hardware. Budget the time, schedule it by department, and enrol two administrators first.
Match the device to the hands that will use it. That one decision drives everything else.
Fingerprint is cheapest per user and fastest to enrol. Keep a card fallback for the 2–3% who never enrol well.
Every product above is one DigiMark Solution imports, stocks and warrants. Pricing is quotation-based and depends on quantity and configuration — request a quotation or ask on WhatsApp.
What to write into a tender so quotations are comparable rather than merely cheap.
| Sector | What to specify | Typical scale | The clause bidders exploit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Garments / RMG | Face or card explicitly — not fingerprint; peak-minute throughput per gate; shift patterns; payroll export format; IP rating for dusty floors | 500–5,000 workers | State the environment, or bidders substitute fingerprint to win on price |
| Corporate office | Fingerprint or multi-modal; HR software integration named; visitor and contractor handling | 50–1,000 staff | Name the payroll or HR system — "integration available" is not a commitment |
| Government / defence | Audit trail retention; authorized-distributor certificate; local service SLA; tamper alarms | Per building | State the log retention period in months — it drives the software tier |
| Hospital | Contactless reading for infection control; 24/7 shift patterns; department-level reporting | 200–2,000 staff | Specify contactless explicitly if infection control matters |
| School / university | Student and staff separation; parent notification where required; high-throughput gates | 1,000–10,000 | Peak gate throughput at opening time is the sizing number |
| Multi-branch retail | Central consolidation; per-branch reporting; low-maintenance devices | 10–100 per branch | State how branches connect — VPN, static IP or cloud — before quotation |
Divide your largest shift by what one device processes in your acceptable window. At 3 seconds per punch over 15 minutes, one device handles 300 people. A 2,000-worker shift therefore needs about 7 devices — or fewer if you use faster verification. Use the calculator above, and enter a realistic per-punch time for your workforce.
Production workers have worn, calloused, wet and dirty hands. An optical fingerprint sensor that reads an office worker in 2 seconds may take 4–8 seconds with repeat attempts on a machine operator. This is the single most common cause of shift-change queues in Bangladesh, and it is a physical limitation rather than a product fault. Palm vein or face recognition solves it.
Palm recognition reads the vein pattern beneath the skin using infrared, alongside palm shape and print. Because it reads inside the hand rather than the surface, worn, cut, wet and dirty hands verify reliably — exactly the conditions that defeat optical fingerprint. It is also contactless and takes about one second.
A biometric device stops one worker punching for another at the device. It does not stop someone punching and then walking back out to let a colleague in. Above roughly 500 workers, pair the devices with turnstiles — the device verifies identity, the turnstile enforces one person per verification.
Without battery backup, punches during the outage are simply never recorded — and no software can recover a punch that does not exist. It becomes a payroll dispute the next morning. Specify devices with internal battery backup plus a battery-backed power supply. In Bangladesh this is not optional.
Yes. ZKBioTime and ZKTime export to standard formats, and both an SDK and database-level access are available so your HR or ERP system can pull records automatically rather than someone exporting spreadsheets monthly. Tell us which payroll platform you use and we will confirm the integration path before you order.
Free site survey across Dhaka and Chattogram. Our engineers confirm the design before anything is quoted.