Working outside in all weather is an expectation of the job when you’re part of highways construction in the UK. Having just come through a stormy winter, we’re reminded that paperwork and field work are not a great combination, where important forms either fall victim to the wet and mud on site or kept in the back of a van for ‘safe keeping’ for a few months. Of course, teams responsible for transcribing and making sense of the information in these forms are rightfully left wanting a more cooperative and cohesive solution.
So, imagine a situation where this could all be eliminated with a simple digital transformation? That’s exactly what the UK’s largest independent surfacing contractor, Toppesfield did at the start of 2019.
Working across highways, retail, transportation and logistics, and in seven regions across the UK, Toppesfield have extensive operations to manage across their employees, customers and communities. The impracticality of manual and paper processes is under the spotlight when the logistics of your information management are that level of complexity.
Driven by a leadership team who are skilled in delivering change, Toppesfield began searching for a better way, leading them to Re-flow field management software.
Re-flow is a workforce tool for businesses with staff working outside the office, on location, that need to improve scheduling, optimisation and tracking in the field. Through smart information management technology, clients experience a new level of transparency over what’s taking place on site, reductions in operational wastage and confidence in their communication and audit compliance.
Sam Hennessey, Business Improvement Manager at Toppesfield commented: "The two things that have impressed me most about Re-flow, are the support that they've given us, especially helping to integrate data into our existing database and that they've given us a system that provides complex information in a really simple way.”
"In the future we hope that Re-flow replaces all of our site-based paper forms. However, we now realise that we have underestimated the capabilities of Re-flow and that it offers solutions to issues we hadn't previously identified. We've been really impressed with Reflow and have already recommended it to a couple of our clients."
Mike Saunders, Managing Director of Re-flow added: “Working so closely with a company like Toppesfield has been an incredibly valuable experience for us, because learning more about the intricacies of what they need as a business has enabled us to learn more about how to make our solution more tailored and specific to the needs of larger highways companies.”