Context

• Quality Marking Services (QMS) is a line marking and surfacing company based in Newton Abbot, Devon, serving the local area.
• Founded in 2001, QMS is a two-generation, family-run business committed to ensuring the ultimate customer experience from initial contact through to delivery.
• Over it’s two decades in business, the company has fostered a talented team of industry professionals who uphold their core values and enable their already stellar reputation to grow even further.

Challenge

Like many businesses that approach Re-flow, QMS was dominated by the tried-and-true manual paper processes the industry was built on. Having formed the foundation of workflows in the highways industry for decades, these methods have been proven to work, but mileage may vary – and the room for improvement is sky high.

In this day and age, marked by innovation and progress, things are changing at a breakneck speed and industries are struggling to keep up. Margins are shrinking, deadlines are tightening, material costs are rising and qualified professionals grow increasingly valuable and increasingly scarce. As the industry grows more unforgiving, small inconveniences like data bottlenecks, delays in communication and unreliable form completion will inevitably become big problems if left unchecked.

It was these inconveniences that QMS wanted to optimise – not just for the good of the business, but for the good of its operatives. The time lag of information returning from site to office, chasing and filling out paperwork, scouring filing cabinets for old forms and fixing mistakes that are an avoidable consequence of unintuitive working processes – wasted time could be put to better use. If QMS could take back this time – they’d have the freedom to grow sustainably, plan ahead and safely focus on the work that matters.

Solution

Re-flow’s field management software for highways was the answer to all the small inconveniences that were slowly stacking up into a much bigger roadblock.

Most importantly for QMS, Re-flow is a fully paperless system. Being cloud-based, all records are stored in one, central location and easily accessible through the dashboard. Filters and bulk editing enable users to quickly access, manipulate and share the exact information they require, including plant, vehicles, documents, forms, employees and even individual operative qualifications. A fully integrated system means operational processes can effectively work together. Records can be attached to digital job packs, including site plans and drawings, while plant, vehicles and operatives can be assigned to scheduled tasks and events.

Forms assigned to users and projects through the dashboard are instantly communicated to operatives’ mobile app and synchronised on login. Drop-downs and fields allow for an intuitive completion process that leaves nothing ambiguous – enabling infallible form accuracy and strict compliance. Re-flow’s forms go far beyond the capabilities of paper, however. Starting at instant communication, forms are fed back to the office in real-time and loaded with a unique digital signature, time, data and location stamping, with the additional ability of requesting photographic evidence that can be captured and annotated directly through the app, providing a granular breakdown of all works on any given site.

That’s not all – users can even build their own forms from scratch to regulatory standards and enable them to trigger automated workflows based on submitted data. Safety checks can update the status of assets, dynamic risk assessments can put jobs on hold, and much more. The power to tailor how the system responds to developments in the business is at the behest of the user.

The fortunate side effect of trading paper for digital isn’t just the increased productivity, compliance and reporting. Businesses that use Re-flow naturally become more sustainable – less printing, less paper, less waste. That’s clean, scalable growth that will stand the test of time.

Outcome

Adopting Re-flow was a point of no return for QMS. The elimination of the many minor inconveniences across the business didn’t just give them back the time they were losing, it gave them more freedom to experiment with their processes and find an optimal path for healthy business growth.

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So much new digital functionality means QMS is now operating a completely paperless office. No paperwork, no filing cabinets – all data is stored, transferred and processed digitally through Re-flow. This includes all health and safety documentation, time sheets and more. With increased accuracy, the back-office can make better-informed decisions and create a safer and more sustainable working environment for all site operatives.

Instant communication back and forth between the workforce and office means everyone in the business is up to date on the latest instructions, working practices and ongoing projects. If documents are changed last minute, they can be uploaded to the system, which will automatically update all relevant data in the app. All information returning from the office including form data and photographs can then be forwarded to clients along with an invoice, meaning the company can get paid quicker while ensuring customer satisfaction every step of the way.

With more intuitive, integrated systems QMS now has complete user functionality. The time saved by Re-flow has allowed the business to integrate additional processes that can streamline workflows even further. One of these has been the implementation of a form generator which is able to generate bespoke basic forms and instantly share them through the app. This was particularly useful during the COVID pandemic, where the team utilised this functionality in conjunction with automated workflows to develop a custom form that allows operatives to carry out and record their lateral flow tests which then generates a PDF report and saves it within the system’s personnel files.

Should the company ever encounter a problem, Re-flow’s software specialists are only a phone call away – actively supporting all clients with issues big and small. The Re-flow team’s commitment to an ongoing, collaborative process gives QMS the confidence that they won’t be left out to dry, and that the platform will scale with the success of their business.

Quality Marking Services now joins a community of over 100 thriving highways firms that trust and utilise Re-flow daily. Improving productivity and cross-team communication, expediting profitability, mastering their HSE and much more. These are the strengths businesses find with Re-flow.

Browse the full catalogue of case studies to see what businesses from all industries are able to achieve with Re-flow’s field management software.