Step into the future of construction with process automation

Michelle (CMAA)01:39

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We appreciate you taking an hour of your time, and welcome to the CMAA product demo. Today's topic is Step Into the Future with FlowForma Process Automation, and your presenters are Paul Stone and Gerard Newman from FlowForma.

Michelle (CMAA)02:03

Paul is a product strategist at FlowForma, the leading provider of no-code process automation tools. He uses his in-depth product and construction sector experience to support FlowForma's construction clients in achieving serious savings and competitive advantage, and he's committed to empowering citizen developers to digitize their processes and manage them smarter and faster without any software code.

Michelle (CMAA)02:33

Gerard is chief technical officer at FlowForma. He's passionate about supporting users on their digital transformation journey with no-code process automation, and has over 20 years of experience designing and delivering process automation solutions that help businesses integrate and automate their operations, deliver better customer experiences and improve efficiency. If you have questions, leave them in the Q&A at the bottom of your screen and we'll get to them at the end. Over to you, Paul.

Paul Stone03:20

Thank you. First, the agenda. We'll talk about what process automation is, how it brings value to your business and how it relates to the construction industry. Then we'll look at process automation in construction today: the state of the market and where people see room for improvement. We'll cover the benefits our clients have realized through a couple of case studies, then the all-important product demonstration, and finally some Q&A. To kick off, I'll pass over to my colleague Gerard.

Gerard Newman04:16

Thanks, Paul. Some process automation tools focus on application integration, which is really only part of the solution. To us, a process is a sequence of steps or tasks that people regularly carry out to achieve an outcome. These processes tend to be fairly well defined, and involve data collection, document generation and workflow rules that determine what happens next.

Gerard Newman04:59

These processes are good targets for automation. Some tasks can be automated, like generating a document, sending emails or getting data from other applications. Some can be eliminated, like entering the same information into several applications. And you can remove delays, such as handovers between departments or people, following up to see if tasks are done, generating reports and checking status.

Gerard Newman05:49

In construction, automation can be applied to processes at all project stages: initiation, pre-construction, procurement, construction and closeout. Paul will highlight some typical use cases later on.

Gerard Newman06:07

One thing I'd call out in construction: in many businesses, processes exist within the boundary of the organization, often in one location. That isn't the case in construction. Processes extend from the project office to on-site operations and involve contractors and suppliers, so enabling all these people to work seamlessly together significantly improves efficiency. That's a key strength of FlowForma.

Paul Stone06:51

We recently carried out an extensive survey in the US, where we polled over 100 people for their opinions on various aspects of process automation, and we'll present the results now. But first, let's see what you think. The first poll question is: what percentage of your business processes are managed on paper, email or spreadsheet today?

Paul Stone07:54

Let's end the poll and have a look. We see a very large percentage in the 76 to 100% band, which is quite surprising: that's a lot of manual processes in your organizations. And our own survey gave a very similar set of results, slightly skewed toward 51 to 75%. Over 60% of construction firms are still using these methods to run their processes.

Paul Stone08:47

What does that mean? They depend on pieces of paper or email chains to run processes, which is inefficient. Paper gets lost in a pocket and isn't passed on to the next person. With an email chain, you don't know whether it was forwarded to the next person in line, so you never quite know where the process is. Firms often resort to tracking processes on spreadsheets, logging every communication to track status, which is inefficient and very prone to error.

Paul Stone09:42

Manual processes also don't give you the data for analytics that helps you run your business smarter and faster. We'd propose automated processes as the solution: all your process detail in one central database, where you can analyze it, see straight away where a process is and who's got the ball, and improve the process over time.

Paul Stone10:24

The next poll is: what is your main process challenge? Let's leave it open for about a minute and then compare it with our survey.

Paul Stone11:17

There's a clear leader: lack of visibility of where processes are inside the organization, followed by reliance on paper-heavy processes. In our survey, security was voted highly, closely followed by reliance on paper-heavy processes and the inability to get a single view of a process.

Paul Stone12:12

So there's a significant presence of paper-based processes in the construction industry, and people find themselves too reliant on them. The surge of interest in analytics in construction is also driving the need to report on processes, and to report on them you have to get the data. With paper-based processes, you're never going to get the data to perform the analytics.

Paul Stone12:49

Here are the areas people want to improve in their organizations. There were many processes people wanted to automate, but these were at the top. Safety is number one, which is no great surprise: incident management, non-conformity reporting and so on. If safety processes aren't automated, it's difficult to track all the issues on a project and put preventive actions in place. I'll show a safety observation process in the demo.

Paul Stone14:09

Quality is also important. Automating your processes can directly improve quality, and a big side effect is a better customer experience and relationship. Our construction clients see this as an unexpected benefit, and it gives them a better competitive position when they bid on future projects.

Paul Stone14:49

Saving worker time will always be there. Productivity has a direct impact on your bottom line, which matters in a tight-margin industry like construction. It's closely aligned with operational efficiency: removing redundant tasks and refining your processes over time to match your resources, suppliers and clients. Rather than a generic process for, say, an NCR, you use an NCR process that matches your workforce, resources and client base.

Paul Stone16:11

Here are some real examples of processes our construction clients automate. Many of our clients automate at scale: we have companies that automate hundreds of processes, and even smaller construction companies automate 40 or more. Incident management is probably the most automated process across our client base, along with risk assessment forms, job safety forms, and joiners, leavers and movers.

Paul Stone17:02

A big challenge in construction is managing the workforce, particularly the contracted workforce: onboarding it, managing it as it changes through the project, and letting it go at the end. Processes for that are of great interest to our construction customers.

Gerard Newman17:34

Another area that comes up again and again, especially with US construction clients, is integration. Construction companies of all sizes commonly use multiple applications, so a layer of process capability needs to tie into them, pulling data out and pushing data in. Project management software is at the top, then document management, which stores the documents for each phase of a project, then CRM systems like HubSpot and Salesforce, and finance systems.

Gerard Newman18:34

At FlowForma we spend a significant amount of our R&D investment on easy-to-use integrations, so processes tie into the applications people already use and make their day-to-day work easier.

Paul Stone19:07

Integration has certainly risen up the agenda with our customers. The variety of systems reflects the variety of use cases. For example, clients who use FlowForma to manage contracts also integrate with DocuSign, so signed documents are collected and stored correctly. Interest in integrations has increased significantly over the past two years.

Paul Stone20:04

Now a couple of case studies, to talk about the journey clients take with FlowForma and the benefits they realize. First, Morgan Construction & Environmental, headquartered in Canada with over 500 employees. They had a constantly moving workforce: over 200 contractors at any point in time, changing all the time, and they were managing it on a very large Excel spreadsheet.

Paul Stone20:52

That was a nightmare. All the documentation and communications to and from contractors had to be logged on the spreadsheet, and the reports they ran from it were only accurate when the data was kept up to date. It was a board-level concern, and they needed a solution.

Paul Stone21:27

They deployed FlowForma and implemented the workforce onboarding process very quickly, in about 10 weeks from beginning to full implementation. It let them manage onboarding and their fleet of vehicles too. Because it's a digital process, all the data is stored in one central database, and they could see each step as it happened on an interactive dashboard. It was a game changer: new projects were fully resourced and could start on schedule.

Paul Stone22:41

It also gave them room to expand. Onboarding was no longer a bottleneck, so they were more agile and could take on larger and shorter projects. And because information was validated at the point of capture, the real-time reporting was always right, and they saved significant time by not going back to correct data and redo steps.

Paul Stone23:47

Next, Sullivan Engineering, a building consulting firm providing technical assistance for exterior restoration projects. They were an expanding firm, but heavily reliant on paper-based processes, which was limiting their efficiency and productivity as more business came in the door.

Paul Stone24:30

The trigger point was the start of the pandemic, when regulations required COVID checks on all employees. We often find construction clients need an immediate need to start their process automation journey. They deployed the COVID checklist in three to four weeks, decided it was so quick and easy they'd go further, and digitized over 20 processes in the following months. Construction firms see big benefits when they digitize at scale.

Paul Stone25:36

They worked on field inspection reports and leak investigation reports, which improved the quality of the service they delivered and their customer experience. They also looked at other technologies, such as Microsoft Power Apps, but found it was four times faster to automate with FlowForma because it's a no-code system: quick to learn, and then quick to digitize a process, in a matter of weeks, with our team helping you every step of the way.

Paul Stone26:53

They also improved productivity by validating data at the point of capture, so it was right first time, and kept company-wide standards: when everybody follows the same digital process, you get a standard level of quality and service across the business, rather than processes on paper or email chains that may differ every time.

Paul Stone27:53

FlowForma works with a wide variety of construction customers: small and large companies, civil construction, housing and subcontractors. That's because of the flexibility of the system: you can digitize any process to improve your efficiency.

Paul Stone28:39

Now the main part of the show, the demonstration. This landing page has several construction templates you can use if you purchase the system. You access FlowForma through a web browser, and this home page comes preloaded with construction processes.

Paul Stone29:20

This is our standard home page, but you can build your own. Here's a customized page I created, with my own branding and photographs, a list of field change requests I have to do, and a Power BI report showing a live view of all the materials requisitions, essentially purchase orders, that I've raised. I can drill into individual purchase orders.

Paul Stone30:25

Let's kick off a safety observation. Clicking the button launches a process in your browser, with a form to collect data and steps in a workflow. You can capture much more than text: GPS coordinates, a Google map inside the form, the current location, the date and time, the current user, photographs, files, comments and tables.

Paul Stone31:45

Now a recording of issues, essentially an NCR-type process. The step bar across the top shows every step in the process, and I'm on the first one. To raise an issue, I record the issue type, operating unit and location, whether it's a supply chain issue, and the NCR category. Then I submit the form to move it to the next step, and the person who owns that step is notified by email.

Paul Stone33:17

All processes work the same way. This onboarding process has different data and different steps, but a very similar user interface. That makes adoption easier: if a construction worker learns how to use one process, they can use any process.

Paul Stone33:54

The system is also available on mobile devices, which is critical for construction. Our mobile app runs on Android and iOS. Here's an Android emulator showing the same safety observation report. It looks very similar, so it's easy to switch between the two. Most construction processes use both: the first step is filled in on site on a mobile device, and the next step is carried out by someone at headquarters in a browser.

Paul Stone35:24

The mobile app also lets you fill in a form while offline. We built that specifically for construction clients, who are often in areas of poor connectivity: you fill in the form offline and it synchronizes when you have connectivity again. It also integrates with the device, so the upload button lets you take a picture with the camera and annotate it, for example to report a quality issue as a non-conformity.

Paul Stone36:35

The big thing about FlowForma is that you define your own processes, tuned to your way of working, and modify the templates we provide. Let's open the onboarding process in the flow designer. Here I can see the steps in the process, and on the right the form the system generates automatically. You can change the look and feel, swap the logo for your own and use your own colors.

Paul Stone38:07

Let's add an HR approval step. I add the step, name it, and drag it to second place. Then I add a question, 'Do you approve?', choose a yes or no answer, make it mandatory and add some help text: 'Please review the request and approve.' I save, and the process now starts with the employee manager recording the new hire's details, then goes to HR for approval.

Paul Stone40:04

Going back to the home page and launching the onboarding process, the new step is there straight away, so the very next person to use the form sees it. I fill in the mandatory fields, submit, and it moves to the HR approval step with the help text. I review the request, approve it and move it on.

Paul Stone41:07

The system also adds automation through business rules, which carry out automatic actions. They can integrate with external systems like Microsoft Dynamics, use Logic Apps to connect to a wide variety of back-end systems, or call external APIs. They also send emails automatically and generate documents.

Paul Stone41:56

Our document generator uses Microsoft Word as a template. This is a real example, a concrete pre-pour check sheet. You start with the Word template you use in your daily operations, merge in the data captured in the form, and generate a PDF automatically. We also integrate with DocuSign, so you can send the PDF to your contractor to sign and have it returned to FlowForma.

Paul Stone43:16

As you execute processes, the system captures the full audit trail: who did each step, when, and how long it took. Process performance reporting is built in, so you can see where every process is right now and whether it's on time or late. You set benchmark durations for every step and for the overall process, and see how processes perform against them.

Paul Stone44:08

Because every form is recorded, you can analyze process trends over time to find bottlenecks, see why they occur, modify the process and improve performance. Built-in reports show a trend analysis, so you can apply continuous improvement techniques. You can also analyze the form data in tools like Microsoft Power BI or Tableau.

Paul Stone45:09

People often ask how easy it is to get started. When you purchase FlowForma, our SureStart program trains you to build your own solutions or modify the templates, and helps you get your first process live, which we aim to do in four to six weeks. That's important, because you start getting a return on investment when a process is live and adopted, and we built FlowForma to be easy to build and easy to adopt.

Paul Stone46:15

We also provide extensive help documentation and instructional videos. FlowForma is a no-code system, designed for people who aren't in IT. You need to know your process, how your organization works and its resources, and then you can build a process quickly by configuring forms, as I showed you.

Paul Stone46:57

The interface is award-winning: we scored highly in the Forrester Wave and have excellent reviews on G2. And one area where we lead the market is Governance. It gives people like engineers a sandbox area where they can safely innovate and build new processes, which are then tested and vetted before they're promoted into production. That addresses IT's concern that engineers might break things, with an element of risk control.

Michelle (CMAA)48:46

Some questions have come in during the presentation. Jennifer asks: how does FlowForma manage production schedules and staff utilization tracking?

Paul Stone49:04

You can build processes to manage those areas, such as a work schedule. FlowForma runs on SharePoint, and all data and documents are stored there by default, or in an external database. You manage the schedule through an electronic form that meets your specific needs and resources, with tasks, dates, predecessors and successors.

Michelle (CMAA)50:22

William asks: how easy is it to adopt a no-code process automation tool, and how quickly can you automate your first process?

Paul Stone50:39

Installing FlowForma is usually a five-minute job, and you can start configuring your first process straight away. With our SureStart program, people create a process within a week, then refine it and get it live within four to six weeks, depending on its complexity. We help you select a process that gives you a return on investment in a short time frame, analyze it, and hold your hand through digitizing it.

Michelle (CMAA)51:48

Rachel asks: are any specific skills required to digitize processes with a no-code tool like FlowForma?

Gerard Newman52:09

There are definitely no technical skills required. You've seen how easy it is to start constructing a process. The key things are an understanding of the business and its processes, and a willingness to spend some time automating them and engaging other people to get their input. Somebody takes the lead, builds a process, engages others and refines it through iterations until it can be rolled out across the organization.

Michelle (CMAA)52:55

George asks how FlowForma has been used in claims situations, specifically during recovery.

Paul Stone53:22

I'm not sure of the full context, but FlowForma is used in the insurance industry to process claims: claim details are recorded, often in call center environments, processed through review and approval steps, and passed to a claims handling system. If that doesn't answer it in the construction context, we'll be happy to follow up after the webinar.

Michelle (CMAA)54:22

DS asks: do processes record a timestamp for each step, specifically approvals?

Paul Stone54:36

Yes. The system captures the full audit trail. When you log in, it knows who you are, and every time you submit a step it records a timestamp and your login details, so it knows who did what and when. That's very useful in regulated environments. Many civil construction clients, especially in the UK, are required by contract to keep a log of all activity, and FlowForma does this automatically and can save it in a database you hand to your client at the end of the project.

Michelle (CMAA)55:50

Pat says many employees work on sites with little or no internet. Would your mobile app support this?

Gerard Newman56:11

Absolutely. The mobile app has an offline capability built specifically for the construction sector. You can start a process or work on a step while online, keep filling in the form when you go offline, and it synchronizes automatically when you're back online.

Paul Stone56:49

Our construction clients see mobile as an absolute must-have, especially when one step is done on a mobile device and the next on a desktop. And offline capability is a big advantage for people working on remote sites.

Michelle (CMAA)57:21

Brian says he's been looking at a number of low-code and no-code options. What makes you different from your competitors?

Paul Stone57:38

The key difference is that FlowForma is designed for business people to build their own processes. It's easy to learn, so you can build a process yourself and achieve early success quickly. Business people don't have much time, and that speed really differentiates us.

Gerard Newman58:21

Most processes combine collecting data, rules that route items through steps, and generating documents and emails. Rather than going to several places to solve each piece, FlowForma brings them together in one easy-to-use interface, which makes applications easier to build, deploy and manage. And with our integrations, we sit within the construction ecosystem and add process capability to the applications already in use, all with no code.

Michelle (CMAA)59:09

One last question: is it possible to generate reports with FlowForma?

Paul Stone59:29

Absolutely. FlowForma captures performance data, like how long steps took and who did them, as well as all the data in the forms, and all of it can be used in reporting. The home page I showed aggregated the detail from every purchase order onto a Power BI report. FlowForma supports standard reporting tools like Microsoft Power BI and Tableau, so you can present the data in dynamic dashboards.

Michelle (CMAA)60:36

That brings us to the one-hour mark. We'll send an email tomorrow morning with a copy of this presentation, more information on FlowForma, and Paul and Gerard's contact details. Paul and Gerard, any last thoughts?

Paul Stone61:08

We offer a free trial. Contact us through our website, and one of our process experts will set it up and guide you through it. Try it out: a lot of people think it can't be that easy to use, but it really is, and when you use it yourself you'll see.