4 time wasters in project planning
There are several time wasters in project planning, resulting from which most projects are not delivered within the scheduled time.
We help installation companies to get a better grip on the schedule. It doesn’t matter whether you do installations, maintenance or provide both for your customers. We ensure that you can efficiently schedule your projects and technicians.
The planning of installations has a different dynamic than the planning of maintenance and remedying disruptions. Contracts in electrical engineering, refrigeration engineering and infrastructure engineering also have a different character. That requires a flexible solution.
With our planning software you save time and complete all your assignments within time and budget. By scheduling better you can increase the productivity of your technicians. This leads directly to an increase in turnover and profit. Calculate it here.
Do you want control over the schedule? Then you can get started with our planning board. Think of the old-fashioned planning board on the wall, but then digital. It makes planning very visual and scheduling technicians is simply dragging and dropping.
Our planning board is online. As a result, our planning software immediately passes on the changes to the technicians via our mobile app. That way they always have the planning in their pocket, wherever they are. They can also report back the status via the mobile app, which you can follow directly on the planning board.
You can make selections in the planning board that give you perfect insight into the availability of your employees. For example, you can distinguish between the various positions such as project manager, work planner, calculator and mechanic.
You can also assign skills to your mechanics. For example, you can record how much they know about electrical engineering, roofing technology or heating and ventilation technology. Because nothing is better than being able to see with a few clicks which skills are available for a project.
You can use the planning board with several colleagues at the same time. As a result, planners, managers and project managers always look at the most up-to-date schedule. There is always only one version of the truth.
With user profiles you can determine what users are allowed to do, for example only view the schedule. In addition, you can determine which data they are allowed to view. For example, you can set that the maintenance department may only edit the schedule of service technicians and not installation technicians.
You can set the system in such a way that, for example, account managers are only allowed to book requests for projects. For example, they indicate that they need a technician for a customer with knowledge of security of cash transport.
We also provide a comprehensive workflow with the request resource feature . For example, a project manager can submit a request to find a mechanic with knowledge of technical automation in office construction. He can already check the availability of technicians with the application before submitting the application.
With the mobile app, technicians always have their schedule in their pocket. Changes are immediately passed on to the app, so the schedule is always up to date. The technicians can see their schedule for the entire week at a glance.
By tapping on a booking you will see all details such as the project, activity, project manager, description and attached documents. Are there any devices or vehicles that need to be taken along? You can also see that in the details. Tapping on the location automatically starts your navigation app so you can get on your way.
At the end of the job, technicians can open the booking in the app and immediately record the actual spent hours. It is also possible that they record the actual spent hours with a timer. At the start of the job they turn on the timer and at the end they only have to turn it off.
Technicians can always supplement the time sheet with activities for which they were not scheduled, such as acute incidents that they had to rush to. Optionally, you can set up a workflow that the hours must be approved by the project manager and/or department manager.
At the end of the job, technicians can also indicate that the job has been completed. This status is then immediately visible to the planner on the planning board. A message can also be automatically sent to the project manager of the job.
For installations that are being worked on for longer, technicians can also indicate the interim progress using a percentage of completion. In addition, they can also record notes about the progress and how many hours they need to finish the job.
Hook up the Outlook calendar to our planning software
We like to blog about the organizational aspects of project & resource planning to inspire you.
There are several time wasters in project planning, resulting from which most projects are not delivered within the scheduled time.
How can you have a well-founded discussion with, for example, management and the sales team with insights from the utilization rate? We will explain that to you.
Who determines the progress of a project? How do you also ensure that this information is reliable? After all, incorrect information can have unpleasant consequences.
With the Analytics feature of our planning software you have a whole series of dashboards at your disposal with which you can analyze the performance of your company. This way you always have the right dashboard for the right kind of projects, because you want to analyze installations differently than maintenance jobs.
You can analyze individual projects for customers, but also groups of customers, types of projects, project managers and much more. This makes it a powerful analytical tool. You can also determine per user which dashboards they are allowed to use and which data they are allowed to see.
In addition to analyzing projects in hours, you can also work with hourly rates in Timewax. That way you can also analyze the results financially. If you use a senior electrician while you assumed a junior electrician in the budget, our dashboards will show you the result in euros.
Do you work with cost price rates? Then we can even show the return per assignment in our dashboards. We then calculate the margin per project based on the actual hours, the commercial rates and the cost price rates. This way you can see which projects earn you the most and which projects earn you the least.
The Utilization feature is a specific dashboard that allows you to extensively analyze the productivity of your company. It provides a forecast of the future workload based on the planning and you can analyze this by department, positon and skill. You can also analyze historical performance based on actual hours.
In this feature you can also create your own views and selections. For example, you can view the availability in hours, days or in a percentage of the workable hours. You can also filter by billable projects and make a distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ planning.
Our planning software integrates seamlessly with typical systems that installation companies work with, such as ERP systems, service management tools and Office 365. We hook up to the systems that you have and that saves time.
You can take an interactive tour, book a tailor-made live demo or even start a free trial. Just want some advice? Don’t hesitate to reach out to one of our planning experts for a free consultation.
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