“We needed a solution to better manage the amount of forms we had.”
GOFORMZ CASE STUDY
AT-A-GLANCE
CONSOR Engineers needed a digital solution to consolidate their forms collection and simplify the completion of forms from remote job sites and underwater inspections.
CONSOR Engineers used GoFormz to digitize their forms for use on phones and tablets, providing a more efficient, secure means of collecting field data. With mobile forms, teams can easily complete inspections, maintenance forms, and safety documents, without fear of water damage or lost information – even offline in remote areas. Mobile forms have also granted increased transparency into equipment maintenance and movement, while increasing accountability for CONSOR teams.
THE FULL STORY
CONSOR Engineers is a national engineering firm, offering services for planning and design, structural assessment, construction, water and wastewater projects, and more. By prioritizing partnerships and innovation, CONSOR Engineers has grown, with offices across 25 states.
Due to the hazardous nature of some of CONSOR’s services – like underwater inspections – it is crucial that documentation is completed correctly and thoroughly, especially for insurance purposes. With forms completed in remote locations and waterfront sites, it was often difficult to maintain thorough records of CONSOR activities, due to lost or damaged forms.
“We needed a solution to better manage the amount of forms we had,” explained Stephen Rowley, a Diver Technician for CONSOR Engineers. “When you have just paper, with the amount of people we have out in the field, the odds of losing or damaging those papers goes up dramatically.” Stephen, who works within the structural assessment department on underwater bridge inspections, recalled the complications of completing paperwork on a boat, citing water damage as a common frustration when completing forms – especially when completing Dive Logs. “Losing a dive log is a bummer. That’s an entire day's worth of work you have no record for… it’s important to have.”
“We needed a solution to better manage the amount of forms we had.”
Dive Logs are an essential document for CONSOR Engineers. “Dive logs are used as a record of every time a diver gets into the water and performs their duties,” Stephen explained. “This includes if they came out of the water with an injury and the amount of time they spent in the water… we needed a way of making sure that paperwork got in the hands of our records keepers, for legal and insurance reasons.”
To ensure each step of the dive process is thoroughly recorded, the Dive Log is filled out before, during, and after each dive. These forms record not only basic dive details, but also note if a diver shows symptoms of decompression sickness. While a diver is underwater, the dive supervisor will continue completing the form. “He’ll talk to the diver under the water using the comms, discussing what we need to look for, while filling out paperwork while we’re down there working.” Once a dive is completed and the necessary information has been entered into the Dive Log, the supervisor will sign the form and complete it. The completed form is then automatically emailed to a secretary.
“Having a digital solution like [GoFormz] really helps us out.”
These digital records not only help CONSOR more closely monitor their diver activity, but also helps the divers themselves. “Having that record helps our divers with their career. If they were to move on to a different company, they would need to have those dives for proof that they have been working as a commercial diver.”
With the success of their digital Dive Logs, CONSOR Engineers moved on to optimize their maintenance forms. “We do a lot of equipment maintenance and transfers between different offices,” Stephen explained. “In the past we would email out what equipment was going where, but we decided it would be a good idea to use GoFormz to keep track of the locations of all of this gear that we send out.” Before GoFormz, maintenance forms were tracked via email, leaving room for human error. “We can now enter in all of the equipment, where it’s coming from, who’s taking responsibility for the shipment, and who is accepting it once it gets there. Then it is [automatically] emailed to the secretary who handles all of the maintenance records, so that she can maintain our maintenance database.”
CONSOR’s paper-based forms provided little assistance when completing maintenance jobs, with CONSOR employees often relying on paper-based or memory-based instruction to complete a job. With GoFormz, forms now include procedural details, and can be easily completed and automatically routed to a secretary upon completion. “Before, we had a lot of paper-based or knowledge-based procedures for performing maintenance on a specific piece of equipment. Now we’re able to make forms that have the procedures written out on them, where you can check boxes as you complete them, sign it, submit it, and it automatically goes to our maintenance secretary to update the information. That helps us out a lot.” This process has drastically improved the CONSOR Engineers maintenance process. “Everything you need to know, everything you need to put down, is already in there. You don’t have to print anything out or go looking for anything – it’s all right there.”
CONSOR Engineer teams often complete jobs with many hazards, requiring rigorous documentation to ensure the safety and compliance of employees. “We created a new form for our Job Safety Analysis,” Stephen explained. “When we’re in the field performing our duties, there are numerous hazards involved with diving, or even topside inspection work. We have a generic safety guide, but supervisors can also add in any other safety related factors that go into each specific job. The [JSA] allows them to select team members, everyone signs the form, and it is then submitted. It’s a record that everyone was shown what they needed to be aware of at that specific job site.” This process has drastically simplified safety and compliance procedures for CONSOR Engineers.
CONSOR Engineers also leverages the GoFormz Reporting Tool to run reports for dives, including information like the time it took to complete a dive, which are then used for insurance purposes at the end of the year.
CONSOR Engineers has realized considerable amounts of time savings via mobile forms and digital data capture. CONSOR’s mobile forms not only have helped to save time, but also have increased accountability for employees. “It gives people some accountability. You can’t just say you did it if you don’t have the paperwork to back it up.”
Next, Stephen and his team plan to optimize their database so that Drop Downs and database fields within their forms can provide more precise, relevant picklist options for end users.
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