“GoFormz fit perfectly with our company and could grow with us.”
GOFORMZ CASE STUDY
AT-A-GLANCE
Barricades Unlimited needed a digital solution to support their rapid growth and alleviate administrative burdens. Relying on paper forms meant that the Barricades Unlimited management team had limited visibility into job site productivity. If forms were lost or turned in incomplete (e.g. missing a signature), staff members would often need to hunt down missing information or recreate documents – resulting in wasted time.
Barricades Unlimited uses GoFormz to digitize their traffic control forms, allowing field teams to easily complete and submit their mobile forms from anywhere. Once submitted, Barricades Unlimited administrators can access data in real-time, increasing visibility into project progress and improving communication between field teams and office personnel. Mobile forms have also allowed Barricades Unlimited to centralize their record-keeping and improve organization.
THE FULL STORY
Barricades Unlimited is a Texas-based traffic control company, providing services ranging “from daily lane closures, to long term work zone set up and removals, to permanent pavement markings.” With over 25 years of experience, the Barricades Unlimited team prioritizes safety and customer service throughout each job.
Barricades Unlimited, a traffic control company based in Lubbock, Texas, was shackled by its paper documents and manual workflows. “We were in growth mode,” explained Jesse Cope, a Project Coordinator at Barricades Unlimited. “But we couldn’t continue to grow sustainably with all of the paper we had.” As Barricades Unlimited grew so did its administrative demands, all of which were entirely reliant on cumbersome paper documents. Needing a more modern, efficient solution for documenting the wide array of jobs performed by their team, Barricades Unlimited turned to GoFormz.
With GoFormz, the Barricades Unlimited team was able to maintain the original formatting of their paper forms, while utilizing powerful digital features to improve their workflow. “We found that GoFormz was a viable solution for us, particularly because we have many employees that benefitted from keeping the same look of their paper forms,” Jesse explained. “This eased adoption and avoided changing the way our system works.”
The first form Jesse and his team digitized was the Call Log. Call Logs act like a work order, detailing work to be completed, materials required, and other critical project details. “We were at the point where the old way of printing out call logs just wasn’t going to work,” Jesse recalled of Barricades Unlimited’s paper-based process. With GoFormz, Call Logs can be easily completed from tablets at a job site. These digital Call Logs can be used to capture job site images, and to ensure work has been completed exactly as requested.
Along with material details and project images, the Call Log also captures a digital Signature. Before GoFormz, if a signature was missing from a Call Log, a field operative would need to return to the job site to acquire the correct form authorization – wasting valuable time. With GoFormz, office personnel can review the form while the field operative is still onsite, catching any missing signatures or other issues so that they can be corrected immediately.
“GoFormz fit perfectly with our company and could grow with us.”
Digital Call Logs have also helped Barricades Unlimited improve their inventory management. With paper forms there was limited visibility into job site activities, making it difficult to monitor the return of items used at a job site, like temporary road signs, sign support structures, and more. “We are strategically focused on improving control of our inventory,” Jesse explained. “And we are using GoFormz now to better capture real-time data when materials go out to the field. We can monitor what’s being used, what’s been lost or damaged, and what’s been brought back.”
The next form to be digitized was the Production Log. Before GoFormz, Barricades Unlimited teams would arrive at a job site to complete pavement marking tasks, armed with paper forms detailing the work to be completed and what materials to use. Once they completed their work, they would return excess materials and equipment to the warehouse, as well as their paper documents detailing what was used for the job. Because these jobs often took over a week to complete, Barricades Unlimited’s paper-based workflow resulted in delayed field to office communication. “It would be a full week of consumed material before we ever got any feedback on what material had been used. We had very limited visibility into how the job was going and how much material was used.”
Using GoFormz, digital Production Logs can be easily submitted from the field each work day, increasing visibility into job site activity and material usage. “With GoFormz we now complete daily Production Logs from the field.”
Barricades Unlimited has enjoyed significant time savings since reducing their reliance on paper documents. With GoFormz, their field teams no longer need to return to job sites to acquire signatures, or reprint and recomplete missing forms. Additionally, once completed forms reach one of Barricades Unlimited’s five offices, administrators are no longer burdened by the endless arrival of cumbersome, physical paperwork. “We save a lot of time in the admin department,” Jesse explained, estimating that each office saves several hours a week. “We have been really organized since GoFormz, because of the way GoFormz is laid out. You can see who owns the forms, and what forms are being completed – the organizational system revolving around GoFormz has helped out our admins tremendously.”
Barricades Unlimited continues to optimize their daily Production Log and plans to digitize their collection of human resources forms next.
Download Case Study PDF