Automate on-site reports in construction
LDD Construction Ltd
LDD Construction Ltd is a dynamic company renowned for its 25 years of expertise in diamond drilling, sawing, and controlled demolition across London and the South East. Evolving from its roots as "London Diamond Drilling", the company now boasts four divisions: Diamond Drilling, Builders Work, Passive Fire Protection, and Strip Out.
The challenge
Before adopting Plumsail Forms and Documents into our workflow, we faced many challenges, as noted by Viorel Boeru, Operations Assistant at LDD Construction Ltd:
Excessive amount of paper use: Our goal is to reduce paper use for environmental well-being by promoting digital alternatives and implementing paperless practices. However, manual handling and storage of paper worksheets hindered this.
Ineligible hand-written documents: Illegible hand-written documents frequently caused delays and complications, necessitating additional communication with operatives and doubling our workload. The condition of creased or stained worksheets not only made us appear unprofessional but also hindered effective communication, leading to misunderstandings, errors, or delays in decision-making processes.
Problems with document collection and tracking: The inefficiencies in document collection and tracking, including reliance on various submission avenues and poor photo quality, resulted in confusion and delays. Operatives' difficulties in submitting worksheets on time led to scheduling errors, pricing discrepancies, and delays in other critical business processes.
Inability to update and provide latest worksheet templates: Updating paper worksheet templates and ensuring everyone used the latest version was a cumbersome task, requiring extensive communication and tracking efforts. The inconvenience of carrying around and maintaining pristine paper worksheets, especially for operatives working across multiple sites, further added to the challenges and inefficiencies in the process.
All of these problems made us consider looking for a modern alternative, which we've found in Plumsail products.
The solution
Identifying the key challenges, we've strategically opted for specific solution tools: Plumsail Forms for creating on-site data collection forms, Plumsail Documents for efficient report generation from templates, and Power Automate for process control. The integration of SharePoint further enhances the solution by providing a centralized platform for storing and managing data.
The result of connecting applications is a new process, let's look at it step by step:
1 Step: Plumsail Form gets filled in.
2 Step: Form submission triggers Power Automate Flow.
3 Step: Power Automate Flow talks to Plumsail Documents Process which contains our Word template.
4 Step: Document gets generated with data submitted by users & gets converted to PDF.
5 Step: A condition in Power Automate decides whether the submission belongs to our Drilling or East Anglia division.
6 Step: Based on which division the submission is for, Power Automate saves the PDF to either our Drilling or EA folders, and emails the submission to pre-determined people and the people who opted to receive a copy by entering their email on the form (this could be the operative filling in the form, the operative’s assistant, or one or more client representatives).
Company's operatives are filling out the worksheets directly on site
And after some Power Automate and Plumsail Documents magic running behind the scenes in an automatic flow, the company gets ready to use PDF files:
Final PDF generated automatically in Power Automate
This new workflow was welcomed by all of the involved agents:
"Now it’s so much easier to update our forms and have everyone use the same, most up-to-date version, compared to before how we weren’t even updating the form because of the havoc it would create. It takes a couple of clicks and we know for sure that everyone is providing us with the exact data we need."
"The worksheets generated by the Plumsail system look much more professional, and are more on brand than ever before. No longer will we have the issue of sending creased, dirty, or damaged worksheets to our clients."
"It’s so much faster doing the worksheets on my phone than it ever was doing them by hand."
A more detailed technical part of this case can be read in Plumsail's blog article "Forms & Documents integration in the construction business to automate on-site paperwork".
The results
Automating the process of creating on-site reports solved many problems that existed previously. Thanks to the Plumsail solution, the process of submitting and storing reports has become much more efficient and convenient than before:
- the number of errors when filling out the form has decreased
- no more difficulty reading and processing reports
- our goal to reduce paper use has become more real and feasible
- time spent filling out the form has decreased
- now our reports look more professional and have one common style
- storing reports no longer take up shelves and work folders, and access to archival documents has become much easier and more convenient.
The implementation of the new process into our daily activities did not take much time, but the consequences after implementation have brought great results already now and we are confident that they will have an impact in the future.
