How NoteVault Helps Earthmover Boost Efficiency with Culture of Documentation

How Franklin’s Earthmoving Inc. prepares to defend claims, improve reporting and increase company efficiency with a 'culture of documentation' powered by a note app

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Franklin's Earthmoving Inc.

Like many contractors, Albuquerque, N.M.’s, Franklin’s Earthmoving Inc. is proactive about improving safety standards for their employees, as well as working to reduce disputes and claims. To maintain transparency into the activity on job-sites, the company’s field teams kept detailed daily logs and construction reports using paper notebooks and diaries. It left Franklin’s was vulnerable to claims.

Hand-recorded notes could be inaccurate and, at times, incomprehensible. Lots of time and energy was wasted scouring boxes of stored notebooks for key data.

Nearly 20% of the Franklin’s staff speak very little or no English. In the event of a claim, the company would be stuck waiting for a translator to review project notes or interpret conversations.

Inaccessible information was increasing Franklin’s risk of litigation and creating inefficiency.

Implementing NoteVault software for field reporting replaced the boxes of indecipherable notes with accurate, up-to-date information easily accessible via computer. In March of 2017 alone, Franklin’s site managers logged three times as many notes into NoteVault. Spanish-speaking employees documented an impressive amount of project information, providing previously unknown key data.

Accounting for project information used to be a liability, but transcribed NoteVault notes provided a significant amount of detailed data that could now be leveraged to keep the company ready to deal with claims, and synchronized operationally.

The drastic improvement in reporting instilled company-wide confidence in the platform. Before long, every member of Franklin’s management team from HR and claims research, to foreman and general superintendents were using NoteVault. Eventually, all but one or two ofFranklin’s more than 30 managers would use NoteVault.

Consistent use of NoteVault allowed the company to tear down information silos and create a single point of access to key project details. Team members are now able to independently access critical information about their project’s status. It reduced the time Franklin’s people spent responding to owner email inquiries and phone calls.

Once Franklin’s stabilized their reporting, the team began applying NoteVault in clever ways. Workers started using it to photograph meter readings, verify deliveries and order amounts, and to record daily production quantities. Project managers entered data stored in NoteVault into job-costing software, monitoring for irregularities, and reconciling hourly discrepancies. In one example, a worker witnessed an off-site bicycle crash which was included in the daily reporting log.

Miniscule details, which can be overlooked with more-laborious handwritten reports are quickly recorded with the NoteVault app. More detailed information prepares the firm to communicate clearly and resolve claim disputes before they escalate.        

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