How Downer New Zealand drives productivity with process automation

Paul Stone00:02

Thanks, Anna. Today we'd like to talk about how Downer is using process automation to drive productivity and better experiences. Karl Henderson from Downer joins us to talk about the company, how they selected FlowForma as their process automation tool, how they applied it to the business and the processes they built, how it succeeded, and what Downer will do next.

Karl Henderson00:47

Downer spreads across Australia and New Zealand, and I work in the New Zealand part. Within New Zealand we have three sectors, transport, utilities and facilities, and about 10,000 people. I mainly focus on transport, and we have some of the biggest projects in New Zealand under our scope at the moment.

Karl Henderson01:19

My role is digital engineering technical lead. I came over from the UK about three years ago, and I've been in the industry for 18 or 19 years, working in design, construction and handover. My key area is increasing efficiency on site through safety, quality and handover, so what we supply our clients is of much better quality than before. One of our biggest wins has been safety, with FlowForma.

Karl Henderson02:02

My focus is collecting data, analyzing it and making it visible to every level of the business, on site and at corporate level. And one of the things I really enjoy is bringing the teams along for the ride. FlowForma really helps with that, being such an easy platform to use.

Paul Stone02:22

Downer seems like a very large company, servicing a wide range of projects across New Zealand. It must be a challenge to move everyone along a digital journey and get the teams to adopt new systems.

Karl Henderson02:43

Absolutely. There's a range of people from different backgrounds, and the projects here are very international, so everyone has a different way of working. But the simplicity of being able to build their own processes in the system has really helped make adoption quite easy.

Paul Stone03:32

Let's talk about the challenges that motivated Downer New Zealand to look for a process automation tool.

Karl Henderson03:45

When I arrived, everything was still very paper oriented. We had some processes, but they were set up by IT and weren't well adopted, because they didn't work for every site. We needed a platform that made sign-off simple and stopped the bottlenecks: engineers having to go back to the site office to get something signed, engineers linking the wrong cost codes to the wrong items, and things not being signed off in time to get them on site.

Karl Henderson04:31

People also didn't know where they were in a process, at any level. We were very good at monitoring data at business level, but on site we weren't capturing the same information. That was one of our key areas. We also promote a very green way of working in New Zealand, and safety was another key area: our first process was a key driver for implementing FlowForma.

Paul Stone05:17

We see that across our client base. What I'm hearing is a data quality challenge, not always capturing the right information at the right time, poor visibility of processes, and safety as a key driver. That's a key business requirement for so many construction companies around the world.

Karl Henderson05:43

Working in a very data-centric way lets you bring more information to the handheld device on site. It's about having the right information at the right time to help streamline decisions.

Paul Stone06:22

Once you'd identified the challenges, I guess you went out to market for a solution to help you digitize those processes. What were Downer New Zealand's requirements?

Karl Henderson06:40

When I arrived we were using tools like Power Apps and the Esri system, but there were a lot of limitations. With Esri there was a substantial limit on what we could achieve. With Power Apps, only certain people could build, and we had to create multiple forms for different platforms. The time taken to produce them didn't outweigh the benefit. The key thing was that we could build a process once and roll it out across all platforms.

Karl Henderson07:32

Downer is very IT security oriented, so hosting our data within our own tenancy was another key function in getting it over the line. And we have a lot of people working on our sites who aren't Downer employees, so being able to create public forms and use that data the same way as our internal data was a key driver for choosing FlowForma.

Paul Stone08:03

We see that a lot, especially in construction: companies want to extend their processes to external parties. Contractors and subcontractors may not have logins to your systems, but they still need to enter data and complete tasks.

Karl Henderson08:34

I'm a strong believer that for any of this to work, you need everyone on board. It needs to be a team approach. We need to bring our subcontractors on board to collect that data, feed it into our main database, and analyze it for each level of the business.

Karl Henderson08:59

Because the platform is easy to use, we can bring people of all levels into building forms. We have site managers, project managers and site engineers all building forms, which then go through an approval process with me to make sure they can be replicated across the business. We wouldn't get this with any other platform.

Paul Stone09:31

A lot of other platforms, the Power Platform and Power Apps for example, require a certain level of technical knowledge and understanding to build solutions. They're not really designed for complex processes built by people in the business rather than technical people.

Karl Henderson10:02

Downer has invested a lot in what we call the Downer standard documentation, and being able to print what we capture on site out to those standards is a big win. It's what will push Downer to implement this company-wide eventually.

Paul Stone10:23

Many tools focus on personal productivity. What you're looking for works across departments, geographies and suppliers, so everyone involved in a process end to end can touch it, update their own information and carry out their tasks.

Karl Henderson11:03

It's such a scalable platform. The governance application helps us set up sites quickly and manage the processes without having to delve too deeply into each site. It makes my job much easier.

Paul Stone11:35

Can you tell us about some of the processes Downer New Zealand has automated?

Karl Henderson11:46

The key one is our big safety push, what we call the permit to dig. Before, the engineer had to fill in a paper form and review all the utility drawings, and the form had to go through three different people before it went live. Now we have a digital form in FlowForma, connected to our Survey123 application, where a GIS map holds all our utilities. We draw a polygon of the area we want the permit for and connect it back to the app using the Power Platform tools.

Karl Henderson12:46

The engineers complete the form, and it goes through a sign-off process that's automated in FlowForma. At the end we get a PDF of the permit to the Downer standard, and a PDF of the permit area showing every utility that intersects the polygon. The permit stays open for seven days, then notifies the engineer when it closes, and we can see all the permits side by side in the GIS tools and in FlowForma. It's been a real game changer for the way we work.

Paul Stone13:32

A process isn't simply a screen or a set of tasks. It's a mix of data, documentation and interaction with third-party platforms, and it's fantastic that this could all be put together without IT. The volume and complexity of the data is significant, you're working with the GIS system, and you get a report at the end.

Karl Henderson14:20

And by doing all of this, we've challenged and improved the Downer permit to dig system as a whole, because of what we learned using it.

Paul Stone14:38

That's a great outcome: by digitizing an existing process, you learned more about it and were able to refine it and make it better.

Karl Henderson15:04

The next big one started as a very simple form to digitize a purchase order, and it became quite a beast, and very automated. We started with manual entry of all the information, then connected it to a work breakdown structure of cost codes, so each time an engineer requests a purchase, it's linked to the correct cost code and work pack. Once it's signed off, we can use that data to analyze the money left in each work pack.

Karl Henderson15:59

A review and approval that used to involve two or three people now sits in one system, with the checks done before it even gets to final sign-off.

Paul Stone16:13

Purchase orders are one of the most common use cases we see, in construction and other industries. Everyone has their own approval process, and this one has a special piece: it integrates with your project cost code structure and draws that data into the process as you go.

Karl Henderson17:10

It's probably the most used process on our tool. I think we're at over 2,000 in six months.

Karl Henderson17:37

This is our latest beast. It starts with a public form built with FlowForma Engage that everyone who comes to site has to complete. It feeds a list of everyone who's been inducted, and it asks them to confirm they've done certain training. If they haven't, the health and safety team is notified so they can get them on a training course before they start work.

Karl Henderson18:21

We've linked that to a sign-in and sign-out app at the front of the site. When people arrive, they tap sign in, it checks the SharePoint list of everyone who's been inducted, and it logs the time, and the same when they leave.

Karl Henderson18:47

Then we have what we call a daily job record, which imports all the sign-ins and sign-outs and gives us the hours booked. The senior site engineer allocates them to the correct cost codes. Once it's approved, it creates a PDF of the daily job record as a record, and pushes the data to another SharePoint list that creates an automated invoice for each subcontractor, which is sent out automatically. We've taken a really long process and automated as much as we can. It's still a work in progress, and we're now linking it back to the purchase order as well.

Paul Stone19:43

That's the most impressive one so far. You've got several forms and sets of data integrated, and you're using Power Automate too. FlowForma integrates very well with Power Automate, so you can push information through it.

Karl Henderson20:31

None of the processes we've built so far have had any involvement from IT, and for us that's key.

Paul Stone20:40

We see it again and again. People start using no-code process automation partly out of frustration: whether it's an internal IT department or an external vendor, getting systems built is expensive and time consuming. They know very well what they want, they're happy to experiment and innovate, and they want to become self-sufficient and take control of digitizing their own processes, which is clearly what you're doing, and very effectively.

Karl Henderson21:46

This one is a site request that uses GIS and Power Automate. We use FlowForma's image upload, with metadata, push the photos to SharePoint, and use Power Automate to bring them into our GIS platform, which geolocates them across the project, with some AI functionality to tag each photo with a descriptive name.

Paul Stone22:29

It's impressive what cloud systems can do now: FlowForma captures the information in forms, and tools like Power Automate analyze the images and extract metadata in the background using AI, all with no code.

Paul Stone23:17

Integration keeps getting easier. ArcGIS is very common in our construction client base, and it's great to see how easy it is to integrate with. Very often the data lives in a project management system, and you need to pull project data out and push it back in, so integration has been a focus for us.

Karl Henderson24:03

For me, the only limitation with FlowForma is yourself. You can pretty much achieve anything. I get asked if we can do certain things, and it's about working through the process and seeing how to integrate all these tools. The only limitation is the person building the form.

Paul Stone24:25

That's the way it needs to be, because the person building the form has all the knowledge: they know the business requirements, their team and the job at hand, so they're best placed to build a solution that addresses the problem.

Paul Stone24:53

What does success look like for Downer from digitizing processes?

Karl Henderson24:58

The permit to dig has been a big win, bringing the GIS platform into safety and making sure site teams look at everything in one system. It's reduced admin time for site staff, finance staff, my survey team, everyone, and it makes sure everyone follows a process rather than making ad hoc requests for information, without all the paper.

Karl Henderson25:44

Improving the quality of documentation is key for us. We're site people, out in the rain and the cold, and nothing comes back nice and clean, so improving that quality for ourselves and our clients is a big win. So is access to data from anywhere: being able to fill in a form or raise a purchase order on site, instead of at the end of the day or back at the office, gets things to site faster, and things get signed off without you having to call people.

Karl Henderson26:43

Linking sign-in and sign-out to the induction has improved management of site staff. If you haven't done the right training or haven't been inducted, you can't sign in and you can't request to be paid. It makes sure everyone follows the process correctly, and it's been a big win for health and safety.

Paul Stone27:17

So by introducing digital processes, you're encouraging people to follow standardized processes, which reduces risk for the business and improves health and safety. You're also gathering data consistently, improving documentation quality and giving you data to analyze.

Paul Stone28:04

The way I see it, digitization is the first step in continuous improvement. Once you've digitized a process, you've thought carefully about it and the resources in the field, and you're in a great place to refine it over time by analyzing its performance and removing the bottlenecks.

Karl Henderson28:43

We have processes where three or four separate paper processes have been brought into one, and FlowForma's dynamic functionality lets us turn things on and off depending on the answers. That's been a game changer for us on site.

Paul Stone29:11

We have another client who turned 21 separate paper forms into one dynamic electronic form, and it made a massive difference to adoption. When you introduce a digital process system, you have to sell it to the end users, and a form that changes based on the data you enter is a real selling point.

Paul Stone30:13

You've had success and built some complex, interesting solutions. What's next for Downer New Zealand?

Karl Henderson30:26

As each project finishes, people move on to other projects and ask for the processes we've built, which is a great story to pass on and encourages more people to adopt it. My role is to encourage the whole of Downer New Zealand transport to adopt this tool, and it's picking up pace quickly. We've already started talking about some really big processes with other parts of the department.

Karl Henderson31:13

It's not just about which forms we need to digitize, but what else we can automate where there isn't a form today, like linking the induction form to sign-in and sign-out to create automated timesheets. Those things can take people four or five hours a day on larger sites. So it's working with our site teams, getting their feedback and bringing them along.

Karl Henderson32:03

A big one for me is digitizing the Downer standards, which will hopefully push this across more Downer New Zealand sectors. And I'm really keen to build a team of process creators, because the more we have, the faster this steam train will go.

Paul Stone32:26

We see this again and again: you focus on a well-known pain point like the permit to dig, deliver a solution everyone can see the benefit of, and that builds appetite for change. People hear about it and want to jump on the bandwagon, and you end up with a team in the business who enjoy digitizing processes and see it as a new skill.

Karl Henderson33:56

It's not just building processes and making them go live. There's governance functionality that lets you review processes before they're used, and gives you the chance to say, this is really good, let's use it on all our projects. It saves time, makes sure everyone uses the correct version, and keeps our quality and health and safety teams happy.

Paul Stone34:29

That quality control is very important. You can give people the freedom to create, then review their output and decide whether it adds value or needs more work, and pass it back to the creator. That review point matters, especially as you start to scale up process automation.

Paul Stone35:13

A little about FlowForma: the product won many awards for bringing a new type of tool to market, focused on business users, so people could configure their own processes without IT resources. We have customers all around the world, from Downer in New Zealand to the west coast of the US, and we believe business people automating processes themselves is the way past the shortage of IT resources everyone faces.

Paul Stone36:31

On to the Q&A. First: how long does it take to digitize a process? Karl, maybe you could take that one.

Karl Henderson37:00

It depends on the process, but you need to approach it in an agile way. Start with what you already have. We took the Downer standard form, replicated it in a digitized process, and then improved it with feedback from the team. You can put together a digitized form in an hour, before review. It's a really simple tool for creating something quickly.

Paul Stone37:46

That's a great approach: create something quickly, get it reviewed and refine it over time. Getting results quickly means you can show people and get their buy-in. A lot of people ask me how to get started, and starting with something they already know is wise advice.

Paul Stone38:48

Next: what are the technical requirements of the system? There are two ways to read that. To build processes, you don't need IT knowledge. You need to understand your process and your resources, and you configure it with a no-code tool.

Paul Stone39:24

To run it, FlowForma sits on top of Microsoft SharePoint. If you have Microsoft 365, you have SharePoint, and FlowForma sits inside it and stores all the data, documentation and audit trail of your processes there automatically.

Paul Stone40:13

How can remote staff use the system? Karl, you mentioned a process that works with remote people.

Karl Henderson40:31

Yes. Everyone who's inducted uses the Engage platform, a public form that pushes information into our platform. All our site engineers have a FlowForma account or link. Across two projects we're currently peaking at about 90 users. To do certain things, like connect to SharePoint lists, people need that access, but it's what drives those forms and makes the experience better for them.

Paul Stone41:29

We often need to change processes. How easy is that? From my side, it's very easy: FlowForma is designed to support continuous improvement, so you can add a step or a field with the no-code tool, test it, and roll it out to your users.

Karl Henderson42:16

It's very easy to change a process. The only complication is getting the change approved by the department the process sits in, which is more a business decision. We also have site-specific processes that we adapt quite regularly to suit the requirements on site.

Paul Stone42:46

Other construction clients do the same: they have standardized processes, then amend them for each project to suit that project's team and plan, so the processes work as efficiently as possible.

Karl Henderson43:22

We have something similar called the inspection test plan, which changes depending on what we're building. Having that flexibility reduces the impact and lets the quality team keep it up to date as we go.

Paul Stone43:50

One more: can I enable supplier access? Yes. A lot of clients use FlowForma for supplier onboarding with FlowForma Engage, the feature Karl mentioned, which lets external parties interact with your system. You place a link on your website, the supplier fills in an onboarding form, and the data passes into the process running in the background, without them having direct access to your systems.

Paul Stone45:45

Thank you to Karl for coming along and telling the Downer story. If you'd like a next step, download our 2022 guide from the link on the webinar page, visit our website, try FlowForma for yourself, or ask us for an online demonstration. Thanks again, Karl, for the screenshots of real, live processes, and thank you all for joining.

Karl Henderson46:56

Thank you.