Premier Water Solutions was founded by chartered environmentalist Louisa Inch in 2008 as a consultancy company based in Somerset. In 2012, the company relocated to Cornwall, where they expanded their offerings. Louisa stated, ‘We were doing such a good job with our consultancy side that we began offering additional services, which include flood risk assessments, drainage design, foul water specification, surface water design or SUDs, and pre-purchase drainage surveys.’

They primarily serve Cornwall but extend their services to areas up to Bristol and Dorset. In the past two to three years, they have increasingly taken on more work from councils, local authorities, and housing associations.

Facing several operational challenges that hindered their efficiency, Louisa started thinking about options to improve things. ‘A day’s work on site could easily take half a day of paperwork,’ she explained. A few areas seemed particularly ripe for improvement:

• The team relied on Outlook and Microsoft Word for managing inquiries and tasks, leading to fragmentation and delays.
• Documentation was primarily paper-based, which resulted in lost or damaged forms due to adverse weather conditions.
• Remote work made it difficult to share information among team members, causing confusion and repetitive handling of the same data.
• Time-consuming manual processes strained resources and threatened the quality of their services.

Louisa Inch aimed to streamline these processes while delivering the same high-levels of service. Her key objectives included:

• Streamlining Communication: To facilitate real-time information sharing among team members and to ensure everyone is updated on job progress and requirements.
• Reducing Administrative Burden: To minimise paperwork and manual data entry and to free up valuable time for operatives, allowing them to focus more on their core tasks.
• Improving Reporting Accuracy: To enable quicker and more accurate report generation on-site, ensuring clients received detailed and evidential documentation.
• Enhancing Compliance and Safety: To speed up risk assessments, safety checks, and form filling in order to improve compliance with health and safety regulations.
• Facilitating Growth: To have software in place capable of working with larger clients, such as housing associations and local authorities, by providing the evidential reporting they require.

Re-flow offered Premier Water Solutions a comprehensive set of tools that addressed their operational challenges and enhanced overall efficiency:

• Centralised Information Management: Re-flow created a unified platform where all job-related information, including client inquiries and job allocations, was readily accessible to the team, improving communication and coordination.
• Customisable Forms: The software enabled the creation of site-specific forms tailored to various tasks, such as pump station maintenance and flood resilience assessments, ensuring that all necessary data is collected efficiently.
• Real-time Reporting: With Re-flow, reports could be generated on-site, helping managers provide clients with immediate, detailed documentation that included photos and descriptions of completed work.
• Evidential Documentation: The ability to capture and submit evidential photos of completed work offered clients reassurance and met the strict requirements of statutory authorities.
• Streamlined Job Allocation: Re-flow allowed for the dynamic allocation of jobs based on priority and urgency, ensuring that operatives received timely updates and were able to manage their schedules effectively.
• Enhanced Health and Safety Compliance: The platform included tools for creating real-time risk assessments and vehicle checklists, helping Premier Water Solutions maintain high safety standards.
• Offline Functionality: The software’s ability to sync data across devices, even without a signal, ensured that team members stayed updated and informed, regardless of their location.

‘Re-flow has been a complete game changer for our business,’ Louisa Inch said about her company’s digital transformation.