Building blocks for digital transformation: how Rimkus digitized field reporting

Maggie Murphy00:00

Hello and welcome to Construction Executive's professional education series. You've joined the webinar Building Blocks for Successful Digital Transformation, sponsored by FlowForma. I'm Maggie Murphy, managing editor of Construction Executive, published by Associated Builders and Contractors, and I'll be moderating today's presentation.

Maggie Murphy00:24

Our first speaker is James Monahan, principal consultant at Rimkus. He started his career in 2016 in project management and building envelope consulting at Sullivan Engineering, known today as Rimkus Consulting Group. He oversees building envelope restoration projects in the New Jersey and New York markets, focusing on construction administration services, FISP inspections, building envelope surveys and leak investigations. In 2019 he passed the civil structural exam and obtained his professional engineering license in New Jersey, New York and Texas, and he's a qualified exterior wall inspector in New York City. He currently oversees facade and roofing projects for two major complexes in the Bronx, totaling 171 buildings.

Maggie Murphy01:32

Next we have Olivia Bushe of FlowForma, a leading provider of business process automation tools for Microsoft Office 365. She has spent the last several years leading FlowForma's marketing and influencing its roadmap with marketing-driven innovation, and she's passionate about revolutionizing traditional BPM through an innovative no-code approach.

Maggie Murphy02:03

And finally, Paul Stone. With broad experience in the IT industry, Paul proposes, manages and communicates the FlowForma product roadmap, using his product and domain knowledge to align it with the needs of FlowForma's clients and the wider market. Now I'll hand it off to Olivia.

Olivia Bushe02:27

Thanks, Maggie, and thanks for joining us. We're in different parts of the world today: Jimmy is in New York, where it's early morning, Paul is in Dublin, Ireland, and I'm in the UK. We're looking forward to an insightful discussion about the challenges facing construction companies. We'll tell you a little about FlowForma, then hear from Jimmy at Rimkus about his challenges and how he solved them.

Olivia Bushe03:22

We'll kick off with a quote from Forrester Research. In short, it says that anyone who invests in process automation over the next few years will find they have an overwhelming competitive advantage. Forrester's advice is that if you have the funds to invest in automation, you should, because it gives you an edge in the market.

Olivia Bushe04:10

That leads nicely to what we do at FlowForma. We specialize in process automation, and we were first recognized for revolutionizing the BPM space. Many of us have a heritage in business process management, and we wanted to create something different: we were first to market with a no-code process tool aimed at business owners. You don't need any IT or coding skills. The joke internally is that if I can use it, anyone can. I'm not technical, and I can build a process in FlowForma and execute it.

Olivia Bushe05:00

No-code and low-code are buzzwords now, but we're an award-winning three-in-one tool: forms, workflow and document generation within one interface, which you wouldn't see in traditional BPM tools. We have over 300,000 users in more than 20 countries, and we serve global construction customers. Construction is a sweet spot for us, and one we focus on heavily.

Olivia Bushe05:43

We'll talk about some of the common challenges we're hearing in construction in 2023, to get your own ideas flowing: the need to build resilience, skills shortages, rising costs, health and safety, which is obviously key in construction, and improving customer experience. Paul will start with a quick overview of how process automation can help.

Paul Stone06:37

Getting control of your processes puts you in a strong position to change, adapt and become agile, and gives you the best competitive position in the marketplace. FlowForma lets you digitize processes very quickly: you can start with a paper-based process you have today, and within a few weeks have a digital process rolled out across your organization.

Paul Stone07:07

That helps efficiency, because you improve communication between the resources on your project. It also lets you collect a lot of data and analyze it to make better decisions in real time. Everybody wants data, and the best way to get it is to digitize the processes working in your organization, so you can report on them and see their performance in real time. And in construction, processes need to be accessible from anywhere, on mobile devices as well as the desktop.

Olivia Bushe08:14

Our first challenge is building resilience. If we learned anything from 2020, it's that resilience is king. Most of us in construction face high inflation, a lack of resources and talent, regulatory pressures and a focus on business continuity. Adoption of new technology is slow because the industry is so heavily regulated, with safety and compliance issues. All of this has made cost-effectiveness a focus again. Paul, how can FlowForma help build resilience?

Paul Stone09:31

Digitizing processes gives you more control than you have today, reducing your overall risk in executing projects and operations. People don't always realize how easy it can be: you can digitize a process in a matter of weeks, and we have clients who've digitized 40 processes in 10 weeks. Once you have control over your processes, you have control over change. You can change a digital process to work more efficiently, and tailor processes for individual projects to make the best use of the resources on them.

Paul Stone10:29

You also get buy-in from the people using the processes. They suggest improvements, which fosters a culture of innovation, and many clients have seen significant benefits from that. Typically, the benefits of digitizing a process exceed the ones you anticipated. And all the data you collect at every step is directly relevant to your business goals and KPIs, so you improve productivity, make better decisions and ultimately improve your resilience.

Paul Stone12:02

One of the key things you can do is standardize your operations. A digital process means everybody follows the same steps, which is a big plus for reducing risk. And most importantly, a digital process in FlowForma is very easy to adopt, and you can tailor it to your resources' needs.

Olivia Bushe12:51

Jimmy, Paul says FlowForma is easy to adopt. What has your experience been?

Jimmy Monahan12:57

It has been, but you do have to dedicate some time and resource to it. Our biggest concern was changing an internal process that engineers and architects have done the same way for a long time. We engaged FlowForma in 2020 to 2021 to automate our field reporting process, and that's what we went all in on. Field reporting isn't simple, so it took a couple of months to build out.

Jimmy Monahan13:45

As we got ready to roll it out, a light bulb went off: we had to make sure the rest of the company adopted it early. If you roll something out to everybody with no beta testing, people who struggle won't use it and go back to their old ways, and then it's much harder to push the new process across the board.

Jimmy Monahan14:09

This was in the middle of COVID, so we automated our daily COVID checklist first. We built that process in one day, because it was a simple form. We used it to get everyone to set up their accounts and download the apps on their phones and iPads. That really helped with early adoption, and when we rolled out the field report soon after, there were fewer bumps because people were already used to it.

Olivia Bushe15:01

That sounds like a great learning: start with a simple process to get buy-in, then roll out the more complex one.

Jimmy Monahan15:21

Definitely. People will want to jump to the more complicated processes, but have a simple process ready to go hand in hand. Working with contractors, there are tons of simple forms filled out every day that would be easy to automate and set up to accompany the rollout.

Olivia Bushe15:49

Our second challenge is skills shortages. There are many challenges to technical adoption: resistance to change, organizational and cultural barriers, and coordinating across departments. We need a different set of skills now to address digitization, and the younger generation isn't enthusiastic about careers in industries like construction and oil and gas. Paul, what's FlowForma's approach?

Paul Stone17:04

The first thing is making your existing workforce more productive, so you don't have to go to the labor market as often. With digital processes you can monitor your tasks and processes, see how well they perform and make tweaks. Automating communication between parties is already a productivity boost, and we see significant gains across our customers.

Paul Stone17:59

Digitizing processes also puts digital tools in the hands of your workforce. Younger staff expect things to be digital; they don't expect to shove pieces of paper around. Meeting those expectations helps retention in the longer term. And from real client examples, we've seen people save more than 6,000 administrative hours, and process improvements of around 60%.

Olivia Bushe18:56

I'm smiling, because before the webinar we were talking about our children. Mine would expect to go into a workplace with no paper. If my daughter touches my laptop and it doesn't swipe, she says it's broken. Jimmy, you've seen an increase in deliverables since deploying FlowForma. How has it helped with skills shortages and productivity?

Jimmy Monahan19:44

We engaged FlowForma for one deliverable and soon adopted another. Then we took a step back: it's not just field reports. We could automate internal forms and processes too. My recommendation is to step back and think about everything you do each day: training, HR, even something as simple as a PTO request.

Jimmy Monahan20:20

We've rolled out other processes: a roof condition survey catered to a particular client, an updated field report process, and we're about to roll out a special inspections process. The more comfortable you get and the more deliverables you have, the more efficient you become.

Jimmy Monahan20:44

There aren't enough people in our industry, and there are knowledge gaps. Standardization helps: a template for the field report, a letter or even a proposal keeps it uniform throughout the company, instead of everyone writing whatever they want in a Word document. And when you automate simple tasks, your team can focus on what's more important. If you cut a process by 15 minutes or half an hour, think how much more you can focus on another job.

Olivia Bushe21:31

I'd guess it leads to happier employees, which helps retention.

Jimmy Monahan21:45

Yes, because people aren't getting frustrated. And making these improvements sends a message to the rest of the company that we're trying to improve and stay with the times.

Olivia Bushe22:06

Our last challenge is the dreaded project overrun, and reducing overall costs. There are expensive errors and inefficiencies, projects disrupted by late delivery of materials, and the quality of data that can be pulled is often poor. Paul, how does digitization help avoid expensive errors?

Paul Stone22:49

Digital processes put intelligent forms in people's hands. The forms validate the information, make sure it's captured correctly the first time, and pass it to the next party in the process. All that data is stored centrally in real time, so you can see what's happening in the field as it happens and make decisions on it.

Paul Stone23:27

For example, a very large motorway project in the UK was able to report in real time on all the work carried out across a 30-mile site, and saved over $2 million on that one process. We have numerous construction examples of significant savings from that visibility of data.

Paul Stone24:09

Where you have to comply with local regulations, it makes a difference too. Many purchasers now include contract stipulations requiring you to evidence that work was done in a certain way, with penalties if you can't. Digital processes give purchasers that evidence, which boosts your credibility and saves you money on contract penalties. So you reduce project overruns, project risk and, ultimately, costs.

Olivia Bushe25:12

Now to the main event: Rimkus, and what Jimmy has achieved with digitization. Jimmy, tell everyone a little about Rimkus.

Jimmy Monahan25:44

Rimkus Consulting Group was founded as a forensics company, and several years ago it expanded into AEC services, where I work in building envelope. It also has a life sciences division and construction consulting. We have around 100 offices in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland, and now Australia, and about 1,500 people. I'm in the New York City market, covering New Jersey, New York and Boston. Before Rimkus, I worked at Sullivan Engineering, where we rolled out FlowForma to fix some field reporting issues. I've been in this role for about eight years.

Olivia Bushe26:49

What motivated you to digitize your processes, and what told you it was time to change? A lot of people say it's nice to have, but they won't look at it for six months.

Jimmy Monahan27:14

It's something we always wanted to do. Fortunately we had a leadership team that knew, despite how busy everyone was, that the effort would pay for itself. We were also using Pages for field reports, which Apple was no longer updating, and that lit the fire. We spent six months researching products, including off-the-shelf tools we might cater to our field report.

Olivia Bushe28:05

What were your key criteria when researching tools?

Jimmy Monahan28:18

The biggest was being able to replicate the look of our current field report almost exactly, because our clients love the style of our reports and how they're written. The other major consideration was being able to edit it ourselves. A product we used in between was custom built by the vendor, and when there were glitches we were up the creek without a paddle.

Jimmy Monahan29:04

We didn't have the resources to have someone on it 100% of the time, but we wanted to hop in and adjust a format when it was off. Knowing how to make those changes ourselves was a big selling point of FlowForma. If a client wants a different section in their reports, we can duplicate the process and customize it for that client.

Olivia Bushe29:35

In traditional BPM tools, everything has to be perfect before you roll it out. It doesn't sound like FlowForma works like that.

Jimmy Monahan29:47

Our field reporting isn't just the report; it has an extensive internal review process with a lot of steps, and that was taking longer to build. We wanted to cancel our old service, and we had a group of people starting in a certain window, so we rolled out the document portion first, a first iteration. New people learned one process instead of learning an old one and relearning a new one weeks later. We'll roll out the full version when we have time.

Jimmy Monahan30:51

That's what's nice: you don't have to be at 100%. Nothing's perfect. Roll out something that gets you 80% of the way, then tweak issues as they come up and keep working toward 100%.

Olivia Bushe31:08

With a project that size you need stakeholder buy-in. Any advice?

Jimmy Monahan31:22

Get feedback and pain points from the team before you start any process, not just from the focus group working on it, and try to implement them. Roll out something simple to get early adoption. And don't roll out to your whole team of 30 or 40 at once, or you'll have 30 people reporting bugs. We rolled out to five or six people for a week or two to work out the bugs first. Also set up everyone's logins up front, because most questions will be how to log in and where to download the app.

Olivia Bushe32:25

Beyond the initial benefits like accuracy, have you seen other benefits as you've rolled out more processes?

Jimmy Monahan32:40

Absolutely. We wanted flexibility to work in the field and the office. A lot of our work is field inspections, so some people start the report in the field on their phone or iPad with the app. I like to take photos, come back to my desk and write the report in the web browser. It's flexible for people who like to work differently.

Jimmy Monahan33:30

Someone on the FlowForma team put it this way: any document you have in Word, you can replicate in FlowForma. Then you start thinking about everything else. Contractors could digitize daily safety checks, job safety reports, scaffold checks or the daily field book, with a copy sent automatically to your server or your client. We're also looking at standardized proposals: start a pre-proposal walkthrough on your phone and have it 80% done before you're back at the office.

Olivia Bushe34:47

Can you summarize the processes you've digitized? It might give people ideas on where to start.

Jimmy Monahan35:23

The field report was the main driver. We also have a general leak investigation, and a shorter one catered to two particular clients. We have a roof condition assessment: a quick field inspection with photos, conditions and approximate square footage. We used the COVID checklist for a while. And we're about to roll out special inspection checklists for New York City, including tenant protection plan inspections and a masonry checklist.

Jimmy Monahan36:16

There's a lot of governance to comply with in New York City, and the books contractors keep on site are full of documentation. In construction there are tons of checklists, safety and punch list items you can easily build exactly how you want, plus personnel on site, scaffold checklists and job safety forms.

Jimmy Monahan36:53

A pain point I hear from contractors is turnaround on proposals: clients want them by tomorrow. Putting our proposals in FlowForma is on our list, and so are compliance reports like FISP reports and building envelope surveys. Whatever you do in Word, any process that generates a Word document, you can put through FlowForma and replicate it.

Olivia Bushe38:03

Let's talk about implementation. You used the SureStart onboarding program. What did that look like?

Jimmy Monahan38:29

We got our hands held to build our first process. Five people on our team joined a four-day program, a few hours a day, covering training and building processes from FlowForma's standard templates. Then a coordinator met with us weekly or biweekly until we got that first process done. By the time we were about 80% done with the field report, we rolled out the COVID checklist pretty much on our own.

Jimmy Monahan39:28

No-code isn't just a buzzword; it's legitimate. I'm not someone who can code either. It's logic-based, step by step, and for someone on the technical side, in engineering or on the contractor side, it's achievable.

Olivia Bushe39:51

Did you feel supported the whole way?

Jimmy Monahan40:08

Yes, there's been tons of support, technical and customer service, and we didn't really feel the time difference. When my team didn't have the bandwidth to build a process, we contracted FlowForma to build it for us. The roof condition survey was done that way, and we've done about 30 surveys with it, so it saved us a lot of time. The small fee is worth every penny, and for busy general contractors that might be the more attractive option.

Olivia Bushe41:27

You mentioned it's truly no-code. Can you explain what that means for the audience?

Jimmy Monahan41:47

You're not pulling up a command prompt and typing code. It's logic-based: there are steps, and you point and click. One thing that impressed me: if you want a multiple-choice question, you type the answers, one per line, and four lines create four choices. Rules are simple too: if yes, then this; if no, then that.

Jimmy Monahan42:47

We're also looking at putting our FISP checklist in. FISP is New York City's Facade Inspection and Safety Program: we inspect buildings to make sure nothing, like brick or stone, is going to fall off. With so many construction types, the checklist is broad, and someone in training can run down it, keep notes and fill it out with that logic built in. Hopefully we'll roll that out next year.

Olivia Bushe43:47

If you have a question for Jimmy, type it into the chat. This slide shows some of our construction customers, including Rimkus, Bouygues in the UK, Bronner in North America and others in Canada. We specialize in construction, and we have a construction process accelerator: templates you can run straight away, or start with and tweak.

Olivia Bushe44:36

To summarize the key takeaways: digitalization is no longer optional; it's vital, and it gives you an overwhelming competitive advantage. It doesn't have to be difficult with a truly no-code tool. Start with a simple process to get adoption, then tackle more complex ones. Find your internal champion, as Jimmy was for Rimkus; it makes a huge difference. And empower your workforce: they'll be happier without repetitive tasks, and can tweak processes themselves without waiting on a contractor or the IT team.

Olivia Bushe45:36

So launch your first process, get feedback and tweak as you go. It doesn't have to be perfect; it's about continuous improvement. Get rid of the paper, pick your first process to digitize and get started.

Olivia Bushe46:05

As next steps, please fill out the post-webinar survey; your feedback helps us understand the challenges out there. There's a free trial of FlowForma, and someone will reach out within a day to set you up. And there's an eBook you can download from the resource panel. Now back to Maggie for the Q&A.

Maggie Murphy46:55

Thank you, Olivia. We have some great questions. First: how can you quantify the value this type of digitization brings to an organization?

Olivia Bushe47:14

There are lots of ways. Jimmy saw that he was doubling his deliverables, so that's one way. Time saved is another: we have customers who've saved hours and haven't needed to hire, because they're suddenly much more productive.

Paul Stone47:48

Many of our clients have measured how efficiently their processes run after digitalization, because the system does it for you. FlowForma keeps an audit trail of every process, and reports show how fast you're moving through your processes. You can introduce improvements over time and see how much faster a process is compared with six months ago.

Olivia Bushe48:54

Another example: one customer found their customer complaints dropped, which was an unexpected benefit. There are lots of benefits from digitizing and automating that you may not have expected.

Paul Stone49:12

Absolutely. Everybody starts off looking at productivity, but the improvement in customer feedback is very significant too. It's a fantastic side benefit that strengthens your competitive advantage and brings repeat business.

Maggie Murphy49:46

Paul, an attendee says many employees work on sites with very limited or no internet. Does the app support that?

Paul Stone50:05

Yes, and that's one of our big selling points in construction. Our mobile apps have an offline cache that saves all the data locally on the device until you have connectivity, then syncs with the main system. You can carry out a site survey, record quality defects and take photos, all stored on the device, and it syncs once you're connected. The apps run on iOS and Android.

Maggie Murphy50:48

Are there live case examples of how this works behind the scenes?

Paul Stone51:05

Jimmy covered how we worked with him through SureStart: we handheld them at first, then they powered ahead and digitized processes themselves. That suits many people, but it's not the only option. A UK construction company came to us with 120 processes to digitize and no time to do it, so we gave them a services package: we digitized the processes for them and trained them to support themselves going forward.

Jimmy Monahan52:20

When we were reviewing products, it was hard to see what we were buying. During the trial period we built a representative field report, so when I presented it to my leadership team, they could see the extent of what we'd get. That made the decision to pull the trigger much easier.