About Us

In 1991, Tensor designed and produced the worlds first smart card based time and attendance system. It was an immediate success and made Tensor a serious competitor in the time and attendance and access control marketplace.

Realising the explosive growth of the Windows™ marketplace, Tensor launched WinTA, the first smart card time and attendance / access control software package especially written for Microsoft Windows™. It included full graphics, report and analysis generators, and the ability to hold a photo on file for every employee within a company. A world beating package from a world beating company!

Continuing with its image as technology brand leaders in time and attendance and access control, Tensor launched its new 16 bit clocking station in May 1995. Able to hold clocking and security information on 2,500 people, each unit had advanced automatic fire-roll features, an intelligent uninterruptible power supply and the ability to handle up to 12 access control points. Use of the latest Surface Mount Technology (SMT) made the equipment reliable and kept prices low.

Today, Tensor Plc has continued the position of the U.K. No.1 by being the only British smart card designer and manufacturer of terminals. Tensor has the lowest priced smart cards, costing from just £4.95 each. Our WinTA product is the most comprehensive software package for combined time and attendance, access control and personnel management.

WinTA is employed by many of Europe's leading companies, and offers the most comprehensive handling of the EU Working Time Directive legislation.

In March 2000, Tensor launched WinTA Lite, a market beating, low-priced time and attendance system. For just £1,495 you get a complete smart card time and attendance system which has many more features than any similarly priced competitor product. WinTA Lite includes the T32xx clocking station (with a large, , graphical display), 50 smart cards, software and manuals. It is EU Working Time Directive compliant and multi-lingual.

In November 2001, Tensor announced its new low-cost access control system, Tensor Access, for delivery in December 2001. This record-breaking, feature-packed access control system is the companion product of WinTA Lite and enables existing WinTA Lite customers to extend their time and attendance system into an extensive and comprehensive access control system, using the same smart cards. Tensor Access can also be installed as a stand-alone system for those wanting the security and peace of mind of access control, but have only a limited budget.

Like WinTA Lite, it is designed as a self-install system and has many more features than competitor products costing much, much more! In addition, it is multi-lingual and will control most types of door locks, turnstiles and barriers. Features include:

• Wide range of access control profiles which can be varied minute by minute
• A near real-time graphical display (can overlay a pictorial graphic of your own site) shows which doors are being opened or have an alarm status
• Doors can be configured to open automatically on fire alarms and lock automatically on burglar alarms
• Sensor monitoring of doors to detect forced entries
• Shares employee data with WinTA Lite and WinTA Enterprise
• Door access can be limited depending on a persons roll-call status
• Anti pass back facility prevents the same card being used by more than one person
• Simple to use and easy to install, Tensor Access is a must for organizations wanting smart card access control on a budget.

January 2002 started the year with the new range of Tensors own ethernet-based time & attendance and access control equipment. This allowed our customers to hook most of our products onto their PC networks, utilising their existing cable runs.

In August 2002 Tensor upgraded it's Prison Pass system – a high security visitor monitoring system especially designed for prisons and similar institutions. With photo ID and bar-coded passes, Prison Pass enables prisons to have a swift and simple way of managing prison visitors.

October 2002 was the breakthrough for Tensor when we announced we had designed and developed the Worlds 1st biometric time and attendance verification and access control systems. Reading the fingerprint of the 'live' tissue underneath the skin of a finger is real space age technology – but in down-to-earth terms it means that irrefutable proof of a person's identity is provided, so no more buddy clockings!

In May 2003 Tensor launched the T1582 fingerprint reader add-on for the T8440 clocking stations.

January 2004 started the year with Tensor adding biometric technology to our visitor monitoring and prison visitor monitoring systems. This technology provided these system with irrefutable proof of a visitors identity.

This was also the year that Tensor announced our combined smart card and biometric access control scanner - the perfect access control unit for high-security systems.

In February 2004 Tensor launched the T4220 low-cost, PC based fingerprint logon device, and the T4230 PCMCIA security unit for protecting data and access to laptop computers.

Tensor PLC is financially strong and employs 106 people. Research & Design activity remains a top priority and this will keep Tensor in its lead position for years to come.

Tensor operates from its own 1,120 m² (12,000 sq. ft.) purpose built factory attached to a magnificent old country house standing in 5 acres of grounds at Hail Weston in Cambridgeshire.