The machine itself
Where it sits, how long the queue is, what happens when it fails, and who fixes it.
Where the Terminal Sits Is the Policy
The position of the device decides which minutes are paid. It was chosen by whoever ran the cable, and it can be changed for the cost of a unit.
How Many Terminals, and Where
One device serving three hundred people in a ten-minute window is a sizing error with a formula, and the formula is never applied because nobody owns the number.
When the Clock Is Not Working
Terminals fail, networks drop and readers stop reading. What happens in the next three hundred punches is decided in advance or improvised badly.
The Sheet of Paper
Every electronic clock has a paper backup. It is the least designed artefact in the process and the one most likely to end up in evidence.
Clocks That Disagree
Devices keep their own time and drift. A terminal eleven minutes out produces a systematic error in one direction that looks exactly like a workforce behaviour.
People With No Terminal
Field, home and visiting workers clock from a phone or not at all. The boundary question is identical and the evidence is much thinner.
Who Owns the Clock
The terminal belongs to facilities, the data to payroll, the policy to HR, the consequences to operations. Nobody owns the boundary, so nobody decides it.