The wish: a clear beam planning
Bernard tells us about how he came to vPlan. "I was looking for strip planning, because that's how I know it from construction. We work with work orders and lists of materials that the fitters have to take with them. We printed out the work orders and gave them to the field workers. Earlier, we planned these in Excel, but this is unnecessarily time-consuming and it could not be interfaced with our software package. Later, we used WhatsApp: we sent photos of the work orders and materials lists and later sent them as PDFs," Bernard says.
Why was vPlan a match for Multi Protect?
Asked why Bernard chose vPlan, he replies, "Actually quite naturally: the strip planning in vPlan (timeline). But also the app. I can put documents in it and the mechanics can access them directly. This way, they have all the documents with them that are needed for the job."
He continues, "In addition, I really wanted insight into our capacity. So that was actually the decisive choice for me. What I want to see is: an order comes in, when can we execute it? vPlan clearly shows the available capacity. This allows me to see exactly how many more hours can be scheduled."
And what about scheduling around leave? Bernard says: "That's very simple. Everyone can submit their leave to me, I then put it into vPlan. vPlan automatically takes days off and/or hours into account in the capacity. The leave is clearly displayed in both the timeline and the calendar view. Also in the app, I have an overview easily and quickly. I can see at a glance who is available when. I find it a godsend," he concludes.
Link with Gilde Software
Another important point for Bernard was that the software was linkable with their project software: Guild Software. And what luck: that turned out to be no problem. When Bernard creates a project in Guild, the programme asks him in which planning board he wants to schedule the assignment. "When a project becomes an assignment, this assignment automatically appears as a ticket in vPlan's backlog, including the project details. All I have to do is schedule the ticket," he says.
"The ticket already contains the customer data and activities. The various working documents are added to the ticket as PDFs. The mechanics receive a notification that they are scheduled for a job. They can immediately see what they need to do, how much time has been calculated for this and what they need for this."
Tips and tops
"What I really like is that I can always access the schedule, even when I'm on the road. The information is very up-to-date. Moreover, the mechanics can see today where they need to go next week. As a result, they start the next job better prepared. So our communication has also become a lot more efficient," Bernard says.
"Currently, our mechanics do not yet use the app to send information back, such as time recording. As we want to implement vPlan step by step, this will be the next step. Nice to continuously make optimisations this way for more efficiency!", concludes Bernard.
Bernard, thanks for the pleasant visit and your story!
