Daley’s Drywall Taps GoCanvas For Mobile Field Reports

Highlights

• Streamlined work orders from days into 30 minutes
• Rich feature set makes it easier to collect important data
• Improved communications with customers 

Forms Used

• Field Report
• Material Order Form
• Field Incident Report Form

Background

California-based Daley’s Drywall and Taping operates in an industry not known for its use of innovative products or technologies. But this provider of commercial and residential drywall services sped past its 50^th year in business due to its progressive approach to meeting and exceeding clients’ expectations for safety, quality and services.

The company’s forward-looking approach has extended to adoption of technology, as long as the technology made a return on investment.

Until 2012 however, one area that remained anchored in paper-based processes was work orders and field reports. Their foremen, working on various sites, continued to fill out and submit these forms by hand. 

With drywall construction projects throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, manual submission of work orders and field reports was becoming a problem. Taking hours or days to return the office led to delays and inefficiencies in processing. With slow returns, and time spent on data entry, manual submission impacted worker productivity, process efficiency, customer satisfaction and ultimately, Daley’s bottom line.

SOLUTION & RESULTS

In November 2012, Daley’s decided to go with GoCanvas, the global leader in mobile forms for business. Daley’s Drywall foremen quickly embraced the GoCanvas solution, a testament to the intuitive interface with the flexibility built in.

It was intuitive enough that forms could be created, deployed and customized by “non IT” professionals within the organization. The solution was fully deployed within three months and field report forms were created within a week. 

Daley’s Drywall found itself in the same position thousands of GoCanvas customers have; the GoCanvas platform—with 14,000+ customizable mobile forms, the form builder and real-time form management—was revolutionizing their internal processes.

Today more than 40 foremen use the Field Report form, which is customized to fit their needs. Daley’s Drywall also uses other forms, including one for accident and safety investigation forms. Over the past year and a half, this company has seen real, measurable results. Some benefits include:

Real Time Information

Prior to turning to GoCanvas, a work order form for a new project would be signed in triplicate by a client on 3-part carbon forms. With projects at residential and business locations throughout the Bay Area, Daley’s Drywall has foremen leading projects ranging from two-man jobs to 70-person operations. These disparate locations meant that it could take several days for the foreman to return to the office and submit the work order.

Once the foreman returned to the office with required paperwork, the work order would be processed, further prolonging billing. All of these delays could result in losing up to 10 days of cash flow. This drawn out process meant that project managers responsible had delayed visibility into the status of each customer project. 

Today, Daley’s collects information more quickly. Users are able to create some field reports within 30 minutes, which is a dramatic improvement from a process that used to take several days.

In addition, the data captured via GoCanvas’s mobile form solution is automatically transmitted in real-time to Daley’s corporate office. Project managers now receive a consistent flow of key customer and project information. They can analyze this information and head off cost impact issues in the field, or other data related to the project. 

More Efficient Service

When filling out work information with paper, sending information to customers took longer. Not only did the office have to wait hours or days to receive information, so too did Daley’s clients.

Moving from paper-based processes to GoCanvas accelerated the turnaround time for delivering field reports to residential and commercial customers. When customers once waited days, they can receive in real time. As a result, customers have more immediate visibility into projects.  

“By using GoCanvas’s mobile form solution, the process of creating and submitting field reports that used to take several days now can be done in thirty minutes – significantly improving the efficiency of our mobile workforce, cash flow position and customer satisfaction.” – Craig Daley, President, Daley’s Drywall

Rich Feature Set

Previously, Daley’s foremen were restricted by paper: The full information they needed couldn’t be done on paper. In the past, a foreman had to take a picture with a cellphone, email the photo to himself, and then attach it for others to view. Not only was this cumbersome, it also allowed room for error.

With GoCanvas, the foremen today can:

• Transmit work orders back to the central office in real-time
• Collect e-signatures from customers on-site 
• Email the signed e-forms to project managers for immediate processing
• Take photos of work in progress and transmit them as needed in real-time to project managers

This rich feature set assures that Daley’s not only works efficiently, but also removes fewer opportunities for errors. Using GoCanvas strengthens the information employees collect as well as continues to streamline their processes even further.

Flexibility to Meet Evolving Business Needs

As a cloud-based, mobile platform combined with an easy-to-use mobile form builder, GoCanvas provides Daley’s Drywall the flexibility to add new features and functionality to any of their mobile forms. As needs evolve and change, GoCanvas makes editing forms a frictionless process.

For instance, as the cost of their supplies changes, Daley’s Drywall can go into their GoCanvas account and simply update the price list they use. Within minutes, these cost changes will be updated for all their technicians. This allows for an easy transition, with limited possibility for accounting errors.

Other mobile form alternatives make this process cumbersome or costly, weakening the effectiveness of their platforms. With GoCanvas it is a frictionless process at no additional cost. 

Today, Daley’s continues to embrace mobile forms. They continue to look at other paper forms they can convert to mobile, streamlining their processes even further. With faster processes, improved customer service, and real time information, Daley’s sees only benefits from going with GoCanvas.  

“Based on feedback to date from our foremen and project managers, we hope to have all our foremen operating 100 percent paperless in the near future.”  – Craig Daley, President, Daley’s Drywall