Electel Resources provides a wide range of services to South Australia’s electricity supply industry and other infrastructure owners. Electel employs or contracts accredited linesmen and electrical personnel for a range of tasks. Including under-ground cabling, communications cabling, powerline, substation, streetlight construction and maintenance.

Electel’s main client is SA Power Networks (SAPN), the sole electricity distributor in South Australia. Docuworx recently caught up with Nick Shearer, CFO of Electel Resources , to hear about how the implementation of DocuWare has helped the company continue to scale amid a period of growth.

What were the challenges you were facing before engaging Docuworx?

We were working out of four depots at the time. All the supervisors were keeping individual spreadsheets of the work allocated to them.

The supervisors would cut and paste different information from different spreadsheets which, left lots of room for errors.

In addition, with some projects, we had our workers manually store proof of work photos.

At the time, SAPN wanted us to use their system, which we didn’t want to do.

We had two main issues, wasted time and errors. We are relying on trade workers that were not very computer literate. Trying to keep track of everything they did was very challenging. It was a long process with probably many mistakes getting through the cracks along the way.

How has Docuworx helped?

Docuworx implemented DocuWare. Now all the work is stored in one central database. Since the implementation, we do not use spreadsheets at all.

When the jobs get completed, the workers fill out a digital form on their phones and then send it in. For proof of work, they attach a photo which, then is uploaded to DocuWare. The whole process is very streamlined.

What has that meant from a business point of view?

To the business, this means we save time.

We receive the information in real-time. The tasks and photos are received as soon as the work is complete.

In addition, we use DocuWare for scheduling, SAPN know when we’re doing work. Automatically updating the schedule, Whereas, before DocuWare, we just had a spreadsheet that assigned people tasks for each day.

Now we have much greater control. We can gauge how much work is being planned by each crew and depot and when they are doing it.

As we have a central location in which all the tasks are visible, we can easily reassign the jobs between depots with the click of a button.

What have been the key benefits?

Well, for a start, it is much easier to keep track of the completed jobs.

We have also eradicated people having to manually document things which would have accounted for about 90% of the errors.

Rather than the workers ticking off jobs from a printed list, we know the completion on receipt of a web form with an attached photo of proof. If we don’t receive the web form with the attachment, we must reschedule the job.

In the past, some of the jobs were assumed and reported completed. Now, DocuWare is very valuable in getting the work in order and ensuring that all the tasks are completed on time and reported accurately.

When we implemented DocuWare, we were in a period of growth due to regulatory reasons and had just employed another 25 people.

SAPN had to prove to the regulator that they could get more work done, plus they also wanted us to expand. Without DocuWare, it would have been a nightmare.

How many DocuWare users do you have and how easy was it for them to learn?

We have between 120 and 130 staff, of which around 30 of them are labour-hire people and 60-80 are using DocuWare daily.

It was easy to implement the users picked it up quickly. We had great support from Docuworx. They spent a lot of time helping us learn the ropes during the first six months.

Would you recommend Docuworx to other businesses?

Yes, 100%. When things get hectic, we can always count on Docuworx.

In my opinion, I believe Docuworx can assist businesses of any size and in any industry. By implementing DocuWare, Docuworx has helped Electel Resources transform its business processes from being manually performed to a more efficient digital way and continue to grow.

Nicholas Shearer
CFO
Electel Resources