Father and son Greg and Ralph Clark formed QMS (Quality Marking Services) in June 2001. They specialise in line marking and surfacing.

Greg and Ralph started the business with a single Mercedes Sprinter van, but soon had their first road-marking truck built. Their success was rapid, and they soon began taking on staff. Now they have a fleet of 23 vehicles assigned to different activities, and employ 17 field users and 11 admin users of Re-flow’s app and dashboard. In their first year they made sales of £350,000: this year they have an end of year forecast of £4.5 million. 

As the company grew, QMS faced several challenges.

• The company’s paper-based workflows were time-consuming and error-prone, leading to inefficiencies and mistakes.
• Delays in obtaining completed work sheets from remote crews were common, causing further complications.
• Communication between office and field staff was becoming inefficient, and maintaining up-to-date records and timely reporting to clients was challenging.
• Putting together dynamic risk assessments for projects was a struggle.

These issues resulted in missed details, mistakes, and delays in returning information to clients.

‘Having dynamic risk assessments completed for each project was a mammoth task and rarely happened,’ Greg Clark said. ‘Having crews working remotely, especially if away from home, meant that we couldn’t obtain the completed work sheets from the crews. The result was having multiple paper forms returned in large batches to process, which inevitably ended up with things being missed, mistakes in processing and understanding, and returned submissions. All of this together led to delays in returning the information to the client.’

Despite concerns that the older generation of the workforce could adapt to new technology, QMS started looking for a field management software provider in order to digitise their operations. They spent some time negotiating and trialling with one company who, as Greg put it, ‘Promised the earth but failed to deliver big time.’

QMS’s Field Management Software Goals

QMS wanted to continue their successful growth, and to propel the business forward into a new era of operational efficiency.

Re-flow provided an integrated system that addressed QMS’s challenges and supported their goals through the following features:

• The ability to eliminate time-consuming and error-prone paper-based workflows
• Instant updates and seamless data collection from remote crews
• Improved communication between office and field staff with a unified platform
• An intuitive interface to ease the transition
• Simplified creation and completion of dynamic risk assessments
• Enhanced health and safety incident reporting and overall auditability
• Customisable forms tailored to various workflows
• The ability for remote crews to work efficiently and submit forms even without internet access.
• Thorough training and continuous support to ensure all staff members can effectively use the new digital tools.

‘After the completion and submission of the very first form, we knew we had hit the jackpot with Re-flow,’ Greg said. ‘The connection between office and field staff has been invaluable. The crews have all adapted to using the system and it is now just a normal part of our daily lives. Wake up, make the coffee, and log into Re-flow! It’s a fantastic system!’

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