Construction & real estate
Efficient workflow for testing building materials
When determining and checking suitable materials in road construction, considerable data is generated that can only be collected directly on the construction site. Either laboriously and prone to error with paper and pen – or efficiently with a tablet and database like Ninox.
Customer profile
IBQ GmbH is an independent and owner-managed testing laboratory for building materials with an associated engineering office. As an accredited, certified testing institute recognized under private law in accordance with RAP Stra, the IBQ Institute provides a wide spectrum of services ranging from subsoil consulting and research to optimizing processes in road construction. The company employs over 30 people at 3 locations in southern Germany.
Challenge
Time-consuming data acquisition on construction sites
As part of their work, staff from the IBQ Institute often have to carry out checks and measurements on construction sites. All measurement results, boundary conditions and environmental parameters must be precisely recorded. This data used to be collected on-site with a clipboard and pencil, and photos were often taken for visual documentation. The data's subsequent transfer into Excel spreadsheets or Word documents and the successive assignment of the images cost considerable time and was prone to errors. In addition, the data's preparation and post-processing into a final report also required considerable effort. The IBQ Institute therefore looked for a more efficient solution – and found it with Ninox.
Solution
Tablets and database instead of paper and Excel
With the support of the Ninox experts at DV digital vereinfacht GmbH, the IBQ Institute developed an individual solution that was precisely tailored to the company's respective processes. Clipboards and pens have been replaced by tablets, while all data are now digitally recorded directly on-site and stored in the central database. Photos are also taken with iPads and automatically assigned to the relevant project. The project manager can call up the data in real-time on his PC in the office and intervene in the process if necessary. At the push of a button, daily reports with all relevant measurement results and assessments are generated as PDF files in the company layout while still on the construction site. In addition, the Ninox solution also includes functions for managing and organizing the projects.
Key Features:
- Mobile data acquisition
- Documentation
- Project management
Benefits
With Ninox, the IBQ Institute was able to completely digitalize its main activities as a testing institute, which range from project planning to on-site data acquisition and evaluation. This has reduced the time spent on them by around 50 percent. It has also simultaneously increased the quality of the data because potential sources of error during transmission and post-processing are eliminated. The IBQ Institute was particularly impressed by the simplicity, speed and flexibility of Ninox. The first construction site logs were implemented within a few days. It took just three to four weeks to come up with the final solution, which, in addition to the construction site and measurement logs, also covers voucher entry and travel expense accounting as well as staff and vehicle fleet management. It was important that Ninox was quickly accepted by all employees and only required a short learning curve in order to be able to use it.
From analogue to digital - in just a few days.
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