Going Mobile: From the Office to the Job Site
A look at how one restoration company is streamlining operations and increasing efficiency with mobile technology.
It has only been three years since Orlando-based Baxter Restoration began serving the state of Florida, but the company has been on a steady upswing year after year in the growing restoration industry. Matt Munitz, project manager, says that 2013 is poised to be the company’s best year yet – a feat he credits to several factors.
One - the dedication and hard work that the Baxter employees have embraced. Two, the additional TPAs that they’ve picked up. And three – and perhaps most importantly – is its implementation of web-based workflow management organizational software, which has enabled its techs to take the office into the field, and vice versa.
After beta testing DASH software through December 2012, Baxter Restoration made the decision to fully implement it into its everyday operations by mid-January 2013.
“It’s definitely been able to increase our productivity as a whole,” Munitz says. “It’s been great.”
Today, Baxter Restoration techs use iPhones and Samsung Galaxy smartphones in the field to do everything from entering data, looking up accounts to taking notes on-site. Paper isn’t wasted, as everything can be completed digitally, and things that once took three to four hours to complete are now able to be completed in a half hour. What’s more is that Munitz is just one of a handful of project managers at Baxter Restoration, so the software allows operations to be streamlined so that everyone is always in the know.
“The next point of contention is to get all the cell phone companies to release 4G (service) everywhere,” Munitz joked.
Here’s a look at what else Munitz had to say about “going mobile” with the business:
On the learning curve:
The learning curve associated with it was very, very minimal. It’s very user-friendly. It’s easy to find your clients, easy to find the jobs, easy to place notes in there. Everybody has their own login and user ID, whereas before, working off of a daily worksheet, you have one, two or three techs completing the worksheet of the entire crew and you were kind of held to whoever was writing everything down. Things are coming across a lot more legible and a lot more accurate as well.
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It’s still very new for us and as the guys get more and more familiar with it, it makes things easier and easier. For years, everybody’s had the same paperwork over here. (But this) it’s been very quick to get yourself (acclimated) to. Once you’re acclimated, you’re off to the races. Just put in your ID and password and everything else is at your fingertips. There’s not much to the app itself.
On the overall effect of going mobile:
In theory and in practicality, it works great. And it’s definitely helped us as far as our growth is concerned. We’ve noticed large advances in productivity for our crews since we implemented this. (We’ve even gone) web-based in house for project management, marketing, job costing. It’s also keeping everyone on the same page as far as dollar amounts are concerned. Our accounts receivable has never looked better.
Definitely having that equipment in the tech’s hands on sites, they can easily click the buttons and say “OK, well that was inspected on this day at this time.” It helps out tremendously with so many people that are involved in claims nowadays. It’s great to be able to have our front-end people taking notes and things of that nature. It really takes a lot of the phone calls and a lot of the searching out of it and it’s really streamlined our process as a restoration company.
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