Kynection: What were the key problems Parker Carpentry Contractors faced prior to using Kynection?
Simon Parker: We had a lot of smaller systems that didn’t necessarily work together, there was a lot of back and forth to get things to line up across all the different working platforms. We had little financial transparency across our projects and all the data entry was manual, making it easy to miss things. This included timesheets, day dockets, safety systems, SWMS, our job safety analysis sheets, our pre staff forms, accident and reporting. Overall, our systems were making it hard to track what tasks were actually being completed and what was happening on site.
Kynection: What was at stake if you didn’t fix these problems?
Simon Parker: When we first got in contact with Kynection we were spending around 2-3 days each week on manual admin work and it was getting worse. I felt that everything we were doing was going through spreadsheets and that we were making too many decisions off “gut feel”. Our manual processes were strangling the company from opening up further growth.
Kynection: Why did you choose Kynection?
Simon Parker: Kynection was a lot stronger in the operational sense than its competitors and most of them could only deliver between 50%-70% of what we needed. What I liked about Kynection was it was more like 90%-100%.
Kynection: How did Kynection approach customising the system to your requirements during the implementation phase?
Simon Parker: Kynection were able to customise their platform to meet our unique needs which was great and they were also able to integrate into our accounting package (MYOB) and built a custom import for our estimating software.
Kynection: How long did it take to start seeing results from using the technology?
Simon Parker: The results started to show within the first month. Straight away we started to get project-specific data for areas we had been trying to unlock for a few years, such as the ability to match time sheet data with certain specific tasks for each job. In the first three months, we were able to take a significant amount of data from jobs that were completed and then evaluate a large number of rates in our estimating system that we thought were good, but turns out we weren’t as close as what we thought we were. From this, we were able to make ourselves more profitable, and offer our clients better rates for some items.
Kynection: How did your guys go using the app in the field using their phones/tablets?
Simon Parker: Yeah, it’s really good. The team love the idea of being able to do everything electronically instead of having to fill out paper timesheets and send them in, which they found annoying. Kynection made the systems easier for them. All they have to do is log onto their phone and pick a milestone, task site they are in and then all they need to do is sign out at the end of the day. All the hours and everything are calculated automatically. They don’t have to work it out or send a timesheet through to the office. If they’ve paid for parking during the week, all they need to do is take a picture of the receipt and attach it to an expense form which goes straight through to payroll. It’s easier to retain employees when you’ve got good systems in place making their life with admin related work as easy as possible.
Kynection: What are some key examples of how the technology helps you on a daily basis?
Simon Parker: Approximately 15% – 20% of the work that we do is hourly rate work, where we have to get a day docket signed off by our client for the work that’s been done during the day and the hours that it’s taken to do that work. A problem that we faced with our paper based system was that you couldn’t take pictures with them. You’d write about what you had completed in a small little box and your hours, which would present major issues if the sums hadn’t been added up correctly.
But with Kynection, all these day dockets are now electronic. All staff have to do when filling out a day’s docket is to go around and take pictures of the work that they’ve done and write an explanation. When it comes time for us to present these day dockets to our clients and builders, there are pictures that tell a story of all the work that’s been done and the hours are all added up automatically.
The Knowledge Base module is also something that’s also been quite handy, it’s almost like an employee portal. We have an area there for staff onboarding. For instance, where we can put staff notices that we may need them to read time and time again, such as our employee handbook, installation guides for products and material safety data sheets. Another thing that has made everyone’s lives easier is that we get all that sort of documentation and put it all up in the onboarding section of Knowledge Base. If they need to refer back to it, even if they’re at work, they can just jump onto the app, go onto onboarding and there it is.
Kynection: Are you able to quantify any cost or time savings through using Kynection?
Simon Parker: Besides from 2-3 days a week we’ve saved on processing manual data, I’d say we probably had about 15%-20% of day docket work disputed in the paper-based form. And now it would be less than 5%. This alone has made a significant impact on our business. Thank you Kynection.