EOLAS DFRs Civil Engineering Reporting
case study
The Problem:
Clients Inspector/Engineer Field Reporting process was a very time intensive and manual process. It took a lot of manpower and cost to finalize and organize reports for clients.
Process:
- Each day Inspectors would hand write notes/reports, then scan/email to Admin Team
- These Reports had little structure/format
- Daily, Admin Team would Type each report in a Word Document, then Convert to PDF (~200 Reports per day)
- Field Supervisors would approve these reports Daily via email
- At the end of Each Week, Admin Team would compile all reports for each individual project, merge PDFs of each Daily Report (~200+ Projects Active Per Week)
- Admin Team then summarizes each report within each Project’s Weekly Summary Report in a manually typed Cover Page
- Engineering team Approves Weekly Summary Reports via email
- Admin Team then Emails out Weekly Summary Reports at the end of each week
The Consulting Process
Engaged with Subject Matter Experts in the teams involved in this process
- Field Staff/ Field Supervisors
- Admin Team
- Engineering Team
Roadmap of Implementation:
- Developed and Demo’d a Minimum Viable Product that covers all base use cases
- Create Training Materials, Host Training Sessions
- Took down all feedback from Subject Matter Experts
- Iterated on the Product based on feedback from early testing
- Phase out Old Manual Process while slowly uptaking the new process as the software became fully functional/implemented
Development Implementation and Results:
Hawkins Team Developed and Implemented a web application for their client. This Web Application was built completely from scratch using PHP, MySQL, and Bootstrap as the core technologies. The platform’s web server is hosted on Microsoft Azure. All development, testing, configuration, and deployment was done by the Hawkins Team. The Hawkins Team utilizes Agile Software Development Methodologies to deliver value tangible prototypes and value as early as possible, while working closely with the client to shape and guide future development and improvements. Through bi-weekly client demos, the Hawkins Team was able to valuable software to the client’s end users. The software changed so much about employees day to day work and made significant improvements to efficiency.
This application is used for all field staff use to write reports in standardized forms. These reports generated in PDF Form and were easily compiled into weekly reports. Weekly Report Cover Page Summaries are generated by the system automatically based on certain criteria in the individual reports contained in the weekly report. All users approve reports within the new system, and email to clients within the new system.
The Reaction:
- Management in each Department were very happy with the time savings
- End Users slowly learned the system as they transitioned from old processes
Time/Resources Saved
- Management in each Department were very happy with the time savings
- End Users slowly learned the system as they transitioned from old processes
The Business Impact
- Client can give better customer service with more uniform and standardized reports that cover all required information per State Requirements
- Staff that moved into other departments made an immediate impact by helping the finance department clean up old issues and stay on top of invoices