Process automation in construction, before and after: CVB on the Thames Tideway Tunnel

Kathy Wells00:02

Hello everyone, and thank you for standing by. This event is being recorded and will be archived on constructionbusinessowner.com, and both the recording and a copy of the presentation will be available to attendees afterward. I'm Kathy Wells, editor of Construction Business Owner magazine, and welcome to Process Automation: Before and After, presented by Lampros Arvanitis, Paul Stone and Construction Business Owner magazine.

Kathy Wells00:29

Today's webinar is sponsored by FlowForma and will highlight insights from Lampros and his recent experience shifting his latest project to a digital environment. FlowForma is a leader in process automation tools for Microsoft Office 365, and offers an innovative approach that empowers users to create and streamline processes smarter and faster using the familiar SharePoint platform, without any coding.

Kathy Wells00:58

Lampros is BIM manager at CVB JV, where he has been working on the Thames Tideway Tunnel project in London. He's a civil engineer with a deep interest in the digital transformation of the construction industry. Paul Stone is a product strategist at FlowForma with 27 years of experience in IT. Paul is the go-to product expert, and he works closely with clients, supporting them in automating and streamlining their business processes.

Kathy Wells01:28

After the presentation we'll open the floor to your questions. You can send questions via the chat at any time. Now let's turn things over to Paul.

Paul Stone01:52

Hi, I'm Paul from FlowForma. Today we're going to talk about a digitization case study: how rapid forms and process digitization have helped CVB Tideway deliver their project. I'm joined by Lampros Arvanitis, a BIM manager on the project. We'll run this as an interview, so I'll ask Lampros some questions and he'll present his answers.

Paul Stone02:24

Let's start with the first question. Lampros, can you tell us a little about the CVB JV and the Thames Tideway Tunnel project?

Lampros Arvanitis02:30

Of course. CVB stands for Costain, Vinci and Bachy Soletanche, the three partners in our joint venture, and we are building a new sewer for London. It will prevent the frequent pollution of the River Thames, and our vision is not only to clean up the river but to change the relationship between Londoners and the river, bringing people closer to a river that today takes a lot of discharges in a typical year.

Lampros Arvanitis03:16

The tunnel goes from 35 meters deep in west London to 66 meters deep in the east. It's 7.2 meters wide and 25 kilometers long, and it runs with the flow, higher in the west and lower in the east. It will cost around £3.5 to £3.8 billion to build.

Paul Stone03:46

That's a very significant project, and I imagine it requires a lot of organization and a very large number of resources. What motivated CVB to digitize processes for the JV?

Lampros Arvanitis04:04

About a year and a half ago we started looking at digital processes because we realized we needed to improve governance and compliance in our processes. As an environmental project, we also wanted to meet our targets and reduce paper: no more lost or unreadable paperwork, and less paperwork on site. We wanted to reduce the time it takes to complete processes and see any holdups, so we know who is accountable and who we need to chase.

Lampros Arvanitis04:40

When processes are submitted digitally, we also get better, structured data we can analyze, stricter record keeping, and better compliance and governance. Then COVID came into our lives. We started looking at FlowForma before COVID, but COVID accelerated our adoption because it enabled remote working.

Paul Stone05:09

We see a lot of that across the construction industry. Everybody wants to reduce paper and their carbon footprint, and they want access to data so they can make decisions and run their projects faster and more efficiently.

Paul Stone05:40

What did CVB require when they were looking for a process automation solution?

Lampros Arvanitis05:52

We didn't start looking at digital processes at the beginning of the project, but around three years after it started. So we wanted a familiar web interface that was easy to use, because we didn't want to bring a significant change to the project. We already use SharePoint, so we wanted something similar, with all the data stored there so we could link it to data we already have from other tools and processes.

Lampros Arvanitis06:21

We wanted agility and speed in delivering processes, and something we could take ownership of and do ourselves, without bringing a whole new software engineering team on board. So, something with no code. Because we were already running processes, we wanted the outputs in our existing templates, so we could keep using them, but now digitally.

Lampros Arvanitis06:51

With a lot of sites and a lot of people out on site, we wanted mobile access. We also needed offline capabilities, because we are building a tunnel and everything will eventually be underground with no internet connection. And with a big supply chain and the client involved in our processes, we needed access for external users, not just people with project email addresses.

Paul Stone07:26

That's a broad set of requirements, and I understand them all. If your construction workforce isn't familiar with this kind of technology, you want it to be as easy as possible to adopt. Mobile access is so important in construction, especially offline: if you're deep underground digging a tunnel under the Thames, you need to be able to work on that process offline. A very valid set of requirements, but a pretty complex one.

Paul Stone08:09

So you've got this big challenge ahead. How did you get started, and could you tell us about some of the processes you've automated?

Lampros Arvanitis08:23

We're one year into implementing digital processes with FlowForma. We started through the FlowForma SureStart program, a step-by-step program where someone from FlowForma helped us develop our first process and trained us. We had our first process live within two months, and it was a very good learning experience. We were then able to take that knowledge and create our own processes, always with FlowForma's support.

Lampros Arvanitis08:54

We now have eight to ten processes automated within CVB. One of the most important and complex is onboarding, for new starters and leavers, because we have a very big project team with a lot of people starting and leaving. Then, very important for a contractor, digital daily site diaries; environmental inspections on tablets; duty manager briefing sheets; and, recently rolled out, a digital plant maintenance system for all the plant checks on site.

Paul Stone09:38

It's impressive that you got your first process live in two months. When you're starting a new way of working, you want a quick return and positive feedback from the workforce as soon as possible.

Lampros Arvanitis09:58

And the two months wasn't spent building the process in the tool. It was spent speaking with different teams and implementing it. I think we had the process built in the first three weeks, and then we had to engage with people to roll it out.

Paul Stone10:17

That engagement is so important for adoption. You put it out there, get people to test it, get feedback, change it and keep that circle going.

Paul Stone10:41

What results did you see from implementing FlowForma process automation?

Lampros Arvanitis10:47

We've only recently started putting numbers to the results. I find it difficult in construction to put numbers on benefits, but from the benefit case studies we've done so far, we've saved at least 700 hours of repetitive tasks with FlowForma within this year alone.

Lampros Arvanitis11:14

We've improved remote working during COVID-19 and supported our strict COVID-19 record keeping requirements, mainly through the site diaries. We've improved our process governance, and we now have structured data we can analyze, using Power BI linked to that data.

Paul Stone11:45

Because you have standardized processes, everybody follows the same path every time, and you can evidence that with an audit trail. And the big advantage of capturing data digitally is that you have it for reporting, so you can identify bottlenecks as they happen. That's a big advantage over paper.

Lampros Arvanitis12:21

I agree, but you also need to think beforehand about how you structure the data. That was something new on our journey too. We originally thought we'd simply have structured data, but you need to think a bit more about the level of detail you want.

Paul Stone12:40

Going through the exercise of thinking about your processes, the data you want to capture and how you want to report on it makes you more efficient and gives you a better understanding of your own working environment. That's a big spin-off.

Lampros Arvanitis13:05

We've also improved some processes. Now that they're digital, we found steps we could improve compared with the paper-based version.

Paul Stone13:17

You've got off to a great start: eight to ten processes live in a year and 700 hours saved. What's next for CVB?

Lampros Arvanitis13:36

We're now looking more at the field. We started with a combination of field and office processes, and the aim this year is to focus on the field: ITPs and quality checks on tablets, field change requests that feed our design, and, as we move into the system commissioning phase of the project, digital system commissioning checks.

Paul Stone14:07

That aligns well with other FlowForma projects that go through different stages: pre-construction, construction and post-construction. The requirements change at each stage, so you build new processes as you go and modify them as your needs change. You started with the daily diaries and you're moving on to quality checks and system commissioning as you reach a later stage.

Paul Stone14:50

Now Lampros is going to do a deep dive into some of those processes, so we can see what they actually look like.

Lampros Arvanitis15:13

I'll go through two processes we've implemented, the daily site diaries and onboarding. For the daily site diaries, the need was to improve how we manage our diaries in general, and more specifically to meet the strict record keeping needed when COVID became a reality. We also wanted to bridge the gap between site and office, and to analyze the data and improve reporting. With so much data from your daily diaries, you can do delay analysis, understand your subcontractors and much more.

Lampros Arvanitis15:50

Our approach was a digital process in FlowForma to produce, review and approve daily diaries, so three steps. At the beginning we formed a working group to define the level of detail and structure of the data, and how it links with existing systems and processes. We involved the construction sites and site teams, but also the planning and commercial teams: how the data links to planning information and to our commercial needs.

Paul Stone16:34

That's a great approach, and it shows how a process spans the project, with people from many parts of the organization involved.

Lampros Arvanitis16:50

It was a tricky one, because the more people you involve, the trickier it gets, but we eventually got there.

Paul Stone16:56

The organization and the change management are the real challenge: getting all the people involved and bought in before you kick off a new process.

Lampros Arvanitis17:18

This is the first step of the process, when people fill in the form. One very important feature is loading data from a previous report. On site, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday may look similar in the same week, so if you've submitted Monday, you can load that data for Tuesday and Wednesday and just adjust it.

Lampros Arvanitis17:46

We record activities and delays, and labor against the planned location, which replaced the standard labor allocation system that the foremen on site were producing. We also record the subcontractors on site, the number of people, deliveries, and general information such as COVID notes, risks, and health, safety and quality notes.

Paul Stone18:17

Lampros, is this something you built, or was it built for CVB?

Lampros Arvanitis18:28

I built it myself, and I'm a civil engineer. I don't have an IT background. After the SureStart process and the training, I was able to start building processes myself.

Paul Stone18:41

It looks very impressive. I see three steps of workflow across the top and lots of different data. A very complete system.

Lampros Arvanitis19:01

That's the detail we wanted, but with the right balance, because we didn't want people on site filling in too much.

Paul Stone19:09

You don't want to overwhelm them. You want them to adopt it and use it, so you help them as much as you can to fill in the data.

Lampros Arvanitis19:21

Following the workflow, you can see the three steps. The site engineers prepare the report, then the section engineer or the agent on site approves it, and then we do a commercial check, aligning the data with the commercial needs.

Lampros Arvanitis19:44

The benefits were support for remote working through a digital platform with defined steps, automated notifications to the people who need to act, and document generation. Before, we had an Excel file that we printed to PDF. We still wanted a PDF at the end that we could share with the client and other teams, and FlowForma let us build our existing template into the new digital process.

Paul Stone20:20

If you're moving away from paper, you still have to support the systems that used that paper, so you need that PDF at the end. But because it's a PDF file, you actually get rid of the physical paper, which has massive benefits.

Lampros Arvanitis20:45

We've also eliminated unnecessary emails and phone calls, because people get automatic emails when they need to act. We've reduced the time spent moving documents to the right folder, because they're stored there automatically, and anyone can see the status of a daily report and who is responsible for the next step.

Lampros Arvanitis21:04

And because we collect all this daily data in a structured way, we developed a productivity and delay dashboard. I can't show it today because it has sensitive information, but it helps the team understand the recurring causes of delay and make data-driven decisions.

Paul Stone21:26

That's so important. In other projects we see it too: the ability to quickly highlight delays and their causes, because delays mean money on projects.

Lampros Arvanitis21:43

Exactly. For just one daily report, we managed to save almost 20 minutes. Multiplying that by the forms already created in the system, it's almost 500 hours saved from repetitive tasks so far.

Lampros Arvanitis22:03

The next case study is onboarding: new starters and leavers. We have a lot of starters and leavers within the same month, and we wanted to manage that better across a large project team, improving efficiency and making sure all the steps are followed properly, with visibility.

Lampros Arvanitis22:27

We also wanted to link information with other processes. Before, a starter form on paper just stayed there. Now we can feed that information to the other people who need it.

Lampros Arvanitis22:54

Again, we used FlowForma to produce, review and approve the steps with different people. It's a big process, and we ran a lot of brainstorming sessions to understand what data each team needs for its own procedures. We involved the line managers on site who bring in new starters, the leadership team who approve them, IT accounts, health and safety, environment, quality and the admin teams, making sure the information reaches them when they need it.

Paul Stone23:37

There's an awful lot involved in onboarding a new resource, from the certifications they need to setting them up on the systems, so I can see there are probably a lot of steps in this process.

Lampros Arvanitis24:00

There are a lot. I'm not showing every step, just the form the line manager raises, which as you can see isn't big, with simple fields to fill in. That's what we wanted: an easy way for line managers to raise a new starter without chasing different departments, and everyone knows the status.

Lampros Arvanitis24:32

We have automated email notifications and people integrated in different steps. When the form is submitted, it includes the name, the team, the line manager who signs the time sheets, the parent company, and whether they're permanent staff or agency staff. The senior leadership team approves it and makes sure it's as per the plan.

Lampros Arvanitis25:00

IT is notified automatically to prepare the email account and laptop for the new starter. The accounts team is notified to add them to the systems and the time sheets. The commercial team makes sure all agency and permanent staff are recorded properly. And we recently added the induction team, who are notified to book the necessary inductions for the person on site.

Paul Stone25:34

There's a lot of communication when you onboard someone properly, and the system sends it automatically and keeps everybody informed. Onboarding and offboarding are such common requirements, but the details are often specific to the project and the customer, so the ability to quickly build something that meets everyone's needs is really important.

Paul Stone26:23

Now I'll talk a little about why construction companies should look at process automation, almost a summary of what we've covered. One key thing is the ability to take ownership and do things yourself, without depending on IT resources. Lampros was able to create a solution himself, very quickly, that met the specific needs of the project. Empowering business people and engineers to do things themselves gets results quickly, and it helps the system be adopted. If people with low digital skills have ownership and take part in building the system, it really helps.

Paul Stone27:25

Integration with Microsoft products like Microsoft Teams matters too, because people are already familiar with them, especially now that Teams use has exploded. FlowForma also lets you engage customers and suppliers: an external supplier can be assigned a step in a process, then go in and complete the form or upload the documentation for that step. And removing paper reduces your carbon footprint, which is increasingly important for everybody, and in some countries is even monitored.

Paul Stone28:20

A big feature for all our construction customers is offline mobile access: filling in a form without internet connectivity. The CVB tunnel is an ideal example, but on other projects, like the A14, a very long highways project, or commercial property construction, you'll always find places without a Wi-Fi signal.

Paul Stone28:59

In construction, a low startup cost is also critical. You don't want to spend a large amount up front on process development. You want to start small and grow over time, which is what CVB did: they built their first process in a couple of months, got it right, then went on to build eight to ten processes over the year. As you grow, you prove the returns with the data and audit trail you're capturing, which builds the business case for management and shows the people on the ground that they're getting better results.

Paul Stone30:00

Lampros gave some great examples, like site diaries, but there are lots of other processes you can digitize, such as risk assessments, concrete pours and materials requisitions, which many of our construction clients run. We've also built features for construction into the product, like wet signature capture and location capture, so you can build the forms you need for your project.

Paul Stone30:58

We have customers in a wide variety of fields, but a strong focus on construction, because there's a great need to move away from paper. We have construction clients in the US, the UK and Ireland, all the way to New Zealand and Australia, where Inland Rail is the largest rail project in Australia at the moment.

Kathy Wells31:31

Thank you both for sharing your insights. We've had questions come through the chat, so let's kick off the Q&A. Lampros, what are your top three tips for user adoption?

Lampros Arvanitis32:06

First, know exactly what you want to get from the process. Spend time at the beginning understanding what you need to achieve, otherwise you won't be able to structure it well. Second, involve as many teams as you can, so they can give feedback and you can get the quality of the process to the standard you want.

Lampros Arvanitis32:39

Third, look at no-code solutions. Personally, I think it's much easier if you own the process and know exactly what you're creating for the people on site, rather than talking with software engineers at other companies to explain what you want. With FlowForma, you can use the tool to create your own process from scratch.

Paul Stone33:19

On that last point, FlowForma truly is a no-code solution. Lampros built the processes he showed you himself, without an IT background or any coding. It fits construction very well, because you can take the paper forms you have today, quickly put together a digital prototype, add the process steps, then share it with colleagues and get feedback, so it becomes something they own and are happy to adopt.

Kathy Wells34:26

Lampros, an attendee asks whether the use of technology in construction improved during COVID-19, and how your experience with stakeholders has been. Were there any struggles implementing technology?

Lampros Arvanitis34:43

Yes. The implementation of digital tools really skyrocketed when COVID came, with so many requests: how can we digitize this, how can we avoid paper, how can we avoid contact. Anyone in the construction industry knows we've struggled to digitize, and COVID-19 boosted that.

Lampros Arvanitis35:20

We've had a lot of positive experience with stakeholders. Our client and our supply chain all picked up the challenge when COVID-19 came. There are struggles too: sometimes low internet connection, sometimes a lack of digital skills on site that needs a bit more support. But I think we're getting there as an industry.

Paul Stone36:03

With stakeholder support, it's important to show improvements as you make them. As you digitize each process, show the savings, as Lampros has done. The data is captured automatically, including performance metrics like how long each step took, so you can show the savings over time, and demonstrate the efficiencies as you improve the process. That's what gets stakeholders to buy in for the long term.

Kathy Wells36:55

Paul, does FlowForma integrate with other packages, such as CRM systems or accounting packages like Xero?

Paul Stone37:08

Absolutely. FlowForma runs on SharePoint, so it saves the data and documents there, but it also integrates with third-party systems. We integrate with Dynamics CRM out of the box, and the main mechanism we talk about is Microsoft Logic Apps, which connects to over 200 cloud applications. You can integrate with on-premises applications as well: Inland Rail, a large project in Australia, integrates with its project costing system, which runs on-premises.

Lampros Arvanitis38:02

I'd add that we also use Power Automate on top of FlowForma. Our data is stored in SharePoint, and we use Power Automate to push it to the many other systems it supports.

Kathy Wells38:27

Lampros, what is the biggest hurdle to people using digital forms?

Lampros Arvanitis38:36

In the office it's easier, because you rely on your laptop and the internet connection. On construction sites we generally experience low connectivity, but the technology is getting better, and I'm sure that will be a thing of the past.

Lampros Arvanitis39:11

In terms of the workforce, my tip is that people on site don't want to use their own mobile phones for a digital process. Most of the time they're reluctant to use their personal phone, so take that into account: buy some tablets, or have a laptop on site where people can go and use it. We've bought a lot of tablets for our sites, which is why we're confident we can overcome that hurdle.

Kathy Wells39:55

An attendee asks whether this is suited to use on mobile phones or tablets.

Lampros Arvanitis40:02

Yes. Whatever you do on your PC, you can do on a phone or tablet, and it supports both iOS and Android.

Paul Stone40:20

FlowForma has a mobile app you can download from the Play Store or the Apple App Store. It connects to your SharePoint environment and lets you fill in forms on mobile devices and upload them to SharePoint. We've built functionality specifically for mobile, like integrating a map into your form to capture the GPS location of the device, which is very useful for site surveys and quality checks where you want to record where a defect is.

Paul Stone41:06

The app is designed for touch screens, and you can take a photograph and attach it to the form automatically. It runs on any Android or iOS phone or tablet, online or offline. The mobile experience is very similar to the desktop experience, which really helps adoption: Lampros can build a daily diary on his desktop, send a link to a site worker, and they get the same form and the same experience on their mobile device.

Kathy Wells42:30

Lampros, could you tell us more about how CVB prioritized processes for automation?

Lampros Arvanitis42:47

In the beginning, we wanted something we thought would be simple to build and quick to implement, and a process we already relied on day to day. That's why we focused on onboarding: the form itself wasn't big, and you didn't have to create a lot of fields. We expanded it later, but we started with something simple that brings a fast benefit, so we could see its impact quickly.

Kathy Wells43:32

Lampros, what's your advice to organizations looking to select a process automation tool?

Lampros Arvanitis43:46

Look at the systems you already use and find a way to integrate and connect them. In construction, it's often difficult to have that system architecture knowledge at the beginning of a project, so look for solutions that are flexible and can integrate with different systems.

Kathy Wells44:22

An attendee asks whether it's just you building the processes, and how you plan what to automate next.

Lampros Arvanitis44:34

No, it's not just me. We have an internal team we've trained to create processes in FlowForma. To prioritize, we created a digital working group that meets monthly, and FlowForma processes are often on the agenda. We discuss together what to prioritize next, then identify the teams to work with to achieve it.

Kathy Wells45:19

Paul, how does the FlowForma platform work on site if you lose connectivity or power?

Paul Stone45:32

On site you're using your mobile device, which caches the forms, so they're saved on the device and then synchronized back to your SharePoint area. If you lose connection, you can fill in the form, save it, and when you have connectivity again it uploads automatically. SharePoint is the data storage area, but you can store things locally on the device until you reconnect.

Kathy Wells46:14

An attendee says they use Power BI. Does FlowForma integrate with the Power Platform?

Paul Stone46:26

Absolutely. All your data is stored in your Microsoft 365 tenancy, in SharePoint, so you can use it with any Power Platform component, like Power BI for reporting. CVB and other clients use Power BI as a dashboard, reading the data from FlowForma. FlowForma validates the data as it's captured, so you build a very strong data set, including performance, and you can identify bottlenecks, red flags and anything running late.

Lampros Arvanitis47:28

We do the same. We've linked the SharePoint lists where the data is stored with Power BI, and the team uses a lot of different dashboards.

Kathy Wells47:54

Can FlowForma be used to manage workflows? For example, could a manager allocate tasks to a team and see a dashboard of which team members have overdue tasks and who has capacity?

Paul Stone48:15

Absolutely. A workflow is a sequence of steps, each assigned to a person or a group, and FlowForma automatically tracks who's assigned to the current step, which you can report on in Power BI. We also have Collaborate, which gives a focused view of all of that: which processes are assigned to you, what your workload is right now, and your team's workload too. It's very useful for supervisors and managers, and for seeing your own workload.

Lampros Arvanitis49:27

There's also a delegate button in the form, which we use. If a form needs to be assigned to someone else, you just hit the button and delegate it.

Paul Stone49:49

The system also supports automatic escalations. You can say a step should take three hours, and if it isn't completed by then, it escalates to somebody else. It also sends reminders: if a job has taken longer than a day, it reminds the person, then sends a stronger message the next day, and the day after that it emails their manager to say the job needs to be reallocated. That keeps the workflow moving.

Kathy Wells50:39

Paul, customer experience is at the top of this attendee's agenda. How can they enable contractors to input to their processes?

Paul Stone50:52

We have a solution called Engage, which lets you assign a step to an external person who isn't on your system, such as a contractor, using something like their Google account. You send them a link by email, they authenticate, and they're presented with the form. It has the same controls and validations a person in your organization would see, but they can't see any other data, such as previous steps.

Paul Stone51:49

Engage is quite unique in the marketplace. It lets construction projects work with external contractors and subcontractors and have them complete steps in business processes, all captured in the audit trail and available for reporting, whether they're customers, suppliers or contractors.

Lampros Arvanitis52:40

There are two options, public and secure. If you want to send a form to the community, you can make it public with no authentication needed, or you can make a secure one with authentication through an email address.

Kathy Wells53:00

That brings our webinar to a close. Thank you to our presenters for the great information they shared, and to everyone for your questions. Attendees can download the presentation and watch the playback at constructionbusinessowner.com/webinars. Thanks again to Lampros and Paul. And a last note from our sponsor: FlowForma has extended a special trial offer to today's attendees.

Lampros Arvanitis53:52

Thank you very much, and thank you for organizing this.