"With accurate and instant reporting, we can make data-led decisions, accelerate progress, and deliver increased value to our clients"
Sarah Woods
Commercial Manager at Fourway
Initially piloted in early 2021, Raildiary has been deployed across the organisation, with a growing team of 84 trained users working on approximately 20 live projects. The diverse range of projects, including reimbursable and fixed-price contracts of varying sizes, necessitates detailed reports on resource utilisation to ensure accurate progress reporting, payment application substantiation, and the actualisation of the Bill of Quantities.
Prior to adopting Raildiary, data collection on projects was scattered across various platforms such as Whatsapp groups, email threads, and SMS messages.
This fragmented approach highlighted the need for a standardised solution that both site and office teams could utilise. This resulted in delayed communication between site and office teams, which also meant Fourway needed more time to effectively provide their client with detailed data to substantiate project progress.
Recognising the importance of efficiency and positive outcomes, Fourway implemented Raildiary as a standardised data-capturing process, revolutionising client communication and overall project management. With consistent and reliable data streaming from the work site, the team can now make well-informed decisions, swiftly identify improvement opportunities, and significantly enhance communication channels.
Raildiary reports have improved communication with clients, allowing instant updates on project progress and saving significant time for the Fourway team. This enables the team to focus on proactive data-led decision-making, accelerating project progress and delivering increased value for their clients. Overall, Raildiary has bolstered client communication, streamlined processes, and empowered the Fourway team to achieve their project goals efficiently.
"Raildiary has been a game-changer for Fourway's project management. With accurate and instant reporting, we've made data-led decisions, accelerated progress, and delivered increased value to our clients. The streamlined communication, standardized data, and bespoke reports have truly transformed client collaboration. Raildiary's user-focused digital tool replaced traditional paper reporting methods, enhancing data accuracy and productivity. It has empowered us to proactively inform clients with tailored reports, fostering stronger partnerships. Our project management has reached new heights thanks to Raildiary's comprehensive capabilities." - Sarah Woods, Commercial Manager at Fourway
Since implementing Raildiary, the office-based team at Fourway has used the platform to pre-populate a large number of site reports using the Shift Planner Tool. This creates a data set which is specific to the project and includes shift locations, meeting points and resource information such as labour suppliers, operative names and grades. The team is also able to upload other data such as plant supplies and plant type in advance of the shift. Once the shift is completed, the Site Leader is able to construct reports by selecting data from short drop-down menus rather than long-hand free text entries.
Raildiary has vastly increased the forward visibility of the workstream, meaning that the office team can pre-populate shift reports weeks in advance by allocating anticipated sites, operative names and shift lengths. Use of the Shift Planner feature reduces the Site Leaders report writing to a quick validation or minor edit. Some of Fourway’s Site Leaders have attributed a time saving of 70% directly to using Raildiary.
Where anticipated activity durations are pre-loaded they can automatically be compared to the actual event following their upload from the Site Leader. The system can be set to flag variances prompting the Site Leader to select from a range of different causal factors including access impeded, late arrival of plant or early possession call. Using this feature ensures there is a clear auditable data trail, allowing Fourway to utilise historical data, and augment decision-making for future project plans.
All of the site report information from Fourway projects is stored in Raildiary’s secure cloud database, eliminating the need for any additional data upload or transfer tasks. Any photographic evidence uploaded on-site from mobile devices is automatically geotagged, time-stamped and linked to the report data set, reducing the risk of correlation error. The image file transfer is a part of the report upload which the Fourway team have found to be more reliable than previous email and Whatsapp reporting solutions.
Prior to implementing Raildiary, the Fourway team faced challenges in collating shift reports and data using Microsoft tools like Word and Excel. This manual process resulted in significant time spent juggling Shift Record data and creating progress reports to update clients about site activities. However, Raildiary has transformed the way Fourway communicates project progress to clients. By utilising Raildiary, the Fourway team can now inform clients about project progress quickly and effortlessly.
Shift reports and progress reports can be generated and sent instantly, ensuring that all data is presented professionally and consistently across all documents.
This eliminates the time-consuming administrative burden that was previously required for manual report creation. As a result, the commercial team at Fourway can now focus on making proactive data-led decisions to accelerate project progress, improve cash flow, and provide increased value for their clients. By consolidating all work communication in one place, the platform increases visibility of data and facilitates collaborative decision-making. Stakeholder updates and progress tracking, which were previously manual processes, can now be automated through Raildiary, saving valuable time on back-and-forth communication.
Furthermore, Raildiary allows for the instant sharing of project dashboards, enabling seamless collaboration on project issues through popular communication tools like Microsoft Teams and Slack.
This real-time collaboration streamlines communication channels, enhances efficiency, and fosters a more productive working relationship among team members and stakeholders. In summary, Raildiary has not only simplified the process of informing clients about project progress for the Fourway team but has also brought various communication-related advantages. By automating stakeholder updates, providing instant sharing of project dashboards, and centralising work communication, Raildiary has significantly improved efficiency, collaboration, and decision-making capabilities within the organisation.
One of the main benefits of using Raildiary for the Fourway team has been the ability to instantly access structured commercial intelligence data in real time.
As all data within the Raildiary platform is standardised and aligned with specific RMM codes this has allowed the Fourway team to complete a more thorough analysis of working hours and access a granular breakdown of labour, plant material and the associated costs. By automating the actualisation of a detailed and accurate Bill of Quantities this has allowed the team at Fourway to fully understand and report on extremely detailed scopes of works without the heavy administrative burden.
Additionally, by using the Key Insights feature of the Raildiary platform, the commercial team at Fourway have been able to visualise powerful data-led insights about project progress and Earned Value of their projects, all in real-time. By visualising this data the team at Fourway are able to navigate problems before they arise and mitigate potential risk or unexplained overspending on projects.
In conclusion, the implementation of Raildiary has proved to be a game-changer for Fourway in bolstering client collaboration and communication within their rail projects. By digitising the site reporting process and streamlining report production, Raildiary has enabled the Fourway team to work more efficiently and effectively.
By implementing Raildiary as a user-focused digital tool, Fourway has replaced traditional paper reporting methods, resulting in improved data accuracy and enhanced productivity. The platform's comprehensive reporting capabilities have empowered Fourway to proactively inform clients about project progress through bespoke reports tailored to their specific needs.
