Streamlining business processes with iForm Pro
The Challenge
McKean Developments is a privately owned joinery and construction company providing complete package construction and maintenance services for both new-build & existing works.
Refurbishing entire multi-storey tower blocks is a high-volume business and working with residential units of the same dimension should be straightforward. In summary, it’s not and we struggled to monitor the progress on such complex, high-volume unit developments using pen-and-paper reporting.
A project can run for many months and the project managers would complete the project paperwork on-site typically returning this to our head office every 5 to 10 days. This meant that the head office team had no indication of the progress of a project without calling the Project Manager for an update.
Additionally, if key project paperwork was not returned we would only know about this at the end of the project and a re-visit would frequently be required to complete the missing paperwork for the unit in question.
When looking at the business from a Health & Safety perspective we also install balconies and balustrades and it is imperative that the installation team follow precise install instructions when installing the item
Additionally, we used to ask the install teams to carry digital cameras around with them to photograph the install at the various stages to document that the correct install procedure had been followed for each install.
This manually managed quality measure was cumbersome and it was difficult to ensure that the correct install photos were associated with the correct physical balustrade / balcony install.
We recognised the need to work in a more joined-up manner in 2013 and we started to search for a real-time reporting tool to support us with our business.
The Strategy
McKean Developments contacted numerous teams about PDA, digital pen and tablet-based reporting solutions and we immediately liked the iForm Pro™ solution from Footprint Solutions.
The real-time nature of form transmission from the install teams to head office was of huge interest to McKean. All issues in the field need to be reported to head office team as soon as possible and iForm Pro delivers form output in under a minute. Another key factor in selecting Footprint Solutions as their service partner is that they provided a one-stop-shop for the entire solution supplying us with iPad™ devices, Data Packages / SIM cards and of course the iForm Pro software.
iForm Pro returns electronic forms more or less instantly ensuring that the head office team always have the latest information available relating to the project. Photos can also be automatically attached to forms automatically naming the photograph, embedding a thumbnail image within the form and returning the full-size images within a Zip file which is returned with each form.
McKean Developments were impressed with the iForm Pro tablet solution, but they also took the information warehouse module which allows them to manage forms as they are returned to the head office team. The warehouse can also generate report output to PDF or Microsoft™ Excel spreadsheets which is great for generating itemised reports to attach to remittance advice notes to their sub-contract staff.
The iForm Pro solution is constantly being developed and the Footprint Solutions team are now developing a Microsoft Office365-based full mobile working offering in partnership with Microsoft™. This allows job sheets to be sent as attachments to calendar invites that will not only place the appointment into the diary of the install team but also send them the pre-populated form as an attachment.
