Doro Kensetsu Co., Ltd. has utilized Questetra BPM Suite to organize and systematize the business processes such as cost management of road-paving works. The BPM also has helped the company reduce the time taken to approve by 50% in audit flows of deliverables such as budgets.
Q. What kind of work are you using Questetra for?
We Doro Kensetsu Co., Ltd. have expanded a road-paving business in Hokkaido, focusing on paving asphalt with its advanced technology.
We utilize Questetra mainly for cost management of paving work, outsourcing management, and verification reporting after the completion of construction.
Q. Please tell me specifically how you are using it
For road construction, a construction budget is created after we receive an order.
The budget contains the detailed processes and the estimate from suppliers concerning materials and equipment. Once the budget is approved by the approver, the construction can begin.
Once construction starts, we manage costs on a daily basis so that it does not exceed the planned construction cost in the budget. After the construction is completed, a final report over the actual cost of construction is made, and the approver determines whether to approve the budget. (Depending on the scale of construction, an intermediate cost report may be required)
Our business will prepare the following deliverables, including the construction budget.
- Construction Budget (proven the appropriateness of estimated construction costs)
- Intermediate and Final Cost Reports (proven the effectiveness of cost control)
- Requests for order (proven the appropriateness of outsourcing costs)
Each deliverable goes through the three processes: drafting, reviewing, and approval.
With Questetra’s services, we have adopted a two-stage approval system.
First of all, after the draft is completed, around 10 inspectors check the contents of the draft at once. At this stage, the inspectors merely give their opinions on the contents. After the inspectors audit the contents, they are delivered to the approver, who finally approves or rejects (and returns) them.
Before we installed Questetra, we did our business in accordance with the following processes:
Our staff in charge of creating a draft sends an Excel file containing the contents of the draft to the IT administrator.
The IT administrator stores the file on an internal server and asks the inspectors (nearly 10 people) for a review by email. The IT administrator constantly checks to make sure the audit smoothly, and the IT administrator sometimes urges the inspectors for the review verbally or by e-mail if there is any delay.
After the review is completed, the IT administrator will request the final approval by email to the approver. The administrator will check that the approver completes the approval, and they will prompt the approver to respond verbally or by e-mail.
However, in those processes there were the following problems.
For example, storing the files along with the audit on an internal server, requesting nearly 10 inspectors for a review, and tracking the progress, all of which was carried out manually. That was a heavy burden on the IT administrator. In addition to that, we required 10 days on average from drafting to approval, the start date of construction was often delayed. Since we started to organize the processes with Questetra BPM Suite the following problems have been solved:
- Not realizing the audit and approval of each inspector is at a standstill
- The audit is delayed because the IT administrator can’t handle the burden
- There are some manual processes that do not allow for a smooth audit
- No one can follow who currently responsible for the job due to the Task being referred back many times
We can see the stagnation of the Issue in a graphical way. This has significantly reduced the communication costs associated with checking the situation.
In principle, we’re not allowed access to internal servers from outside the office. On the other hand, a cloud service like Questetra allows us to audit by connecting to the Internet with a PC or smartphone even when we’re out of the office. As a result the time required for audits has been greatly reduced.
After the installation of Questetra BPM Suite the audit can be completed within 3 to 5 days from drafting to approval.
Q. We have heard that you have been struggling to create reports in Excel
After the construction is completed the client company verifies the construction. After that is completed we prepare a verification report in order to share the evaluation and notes of the construction within the company.
We have employees in a wide range of age groups, from young adulthood to middle age, who are in charge of preparing verification reports. Some of them had worked for government offices or other companies and are old-age employees.
We had used Excel to create a draft of the report as well as for cost management. However, it was often difficult for older employees to type data into Excel, and they often wrote reports on paper, which were then converted to Excel format by the IT administrator.
After we installed Questetra BPM Suite these problems were resolved.
Q. What innovations have you made?
With Questetra, we have devised the following points to make the drafting screen of the verification report as easy to use as possible for people who are not familiar with it.
- Utilize options so they can gather the information they need for the report just by choosing the relevant option
- Provide easy-to-understand explanations so that they can enter the information without hesitation
This enabled old-age employees to use Questetra to create their own report drafts, which significantly reduces the burden on the IT administrator.
Questetra BPM Suite also enables us to make drafts from anywhere as long as there is a connection to the Internet, which is one of the benefits for staff in charge of creating a draft, which encourages them to actively use Questetra.
In the future, we intend to apply Questetra to many of our internal operations in order to provide a better working environment for our employees and to create a strong organization that supports the BCP (Business Continuity Plan).
