“GoFormz was our choice because it’s easy to use from both the administrative point of view and the engineers’ point of view, which is very important to us.”
Challenge
Service engineers needed to improve the way they tracked information about maintenance and repair visits. Before implementing GoFormz, they were using carbon copy forms to track travel details, hours worked, and customer satisfaction. They needed a solution that prevented lost forms, automated calculations, gathered signatures, and automatically emailed copies to multiple parties.
Solution
With GoFormz, the service engineers enter all their service report details into a digital form, eliminating illegible handwriting and miscalculations. Thanks to automated emails, the form is immediately routed to the service coordinators and the client, making record-keeping easier than ever.
Results
- Time saved from gathering and scanning forms
- Gained the ability to edit existing forms
- Streamlined company and client communication
Digital Form Type
Service Reports
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Sign Up FreeAbout BluePrint Automation
For 40 years, BluePrint Automation has been engineering turnkey packaging automation systems for all industries; from food to pharmaceuticals, and more. Headquartered in Woerden, Netherlands, their team of experts designs and manufactures custom packaging machinery unique to the needs of each client. They’ve built a reputation for reliable solutions that withstand the test of time, built efficiently and intuitively.
A Little Background
It takes a highly skilled team of engineers to build the packaging machinery at BluePrint Automation, and they needed a way to improve the tracking of their service and maintenance information. Before implementing GoFormz, service engineers had to track detailed information about their work on carbon copy paper forms. These forms caused a number of problems, including illegible handwriting, lost forms, and wasted time in getting the forms copied and scanned. As a team founded upon innovation, they knew there had to be a better way.
After looking into several digital form solutions, they chose GoFormz. From maintaining the look and formatting of their existing forms, to the ease of use, GoFormz was quickly integrated into their workflow. “GoFormz was our choice because it’s easy to use from the administrative point of view, but also the engineers’ point of view,” said Amy Marijne, Spare Parts Coordinator at BluePrint Automation. Finding a solution that met administrative needs as well as the needs of their staff was critical to their decision
“Everyone agrees that what we have now is much better because papers get lost. It just wasn’t a great system, and from paper to digital has been such an improvement.”
– Amy Marijne, Spare Parts Coordinator, BluePrint Automation
Implementing GoFormz
While engineers tend to prefer digital solutions, at first the team was hesitant about the move away from their existing paper forms. They had used the same carbon copy paperwork for years, and it was familiar to the whole team. “Everyone agrees that what we have now is much better because papers get lost,” Marijne commented. “It just wasn’t a great system, and from paper to digital has been such an improvement.”
Starting with Service Reports
The engineers at BluePrint Automation now primarily use GoFormz to track their service reports. With streamlined paperwork processes and simplified client communication, vital information can now be captured within a single form. Forms contain just about everything there is to know about a service visit, which happens when a client needs maintenance or repair work on one of their machines.
Service reports are filled out by a service engineer at the client’s site, and includes their travel time and distance, work they’ve completed, how many hours they worked, and even their break times. The engineer also includes details from the client about the machine, if and how it was repaired, or if the engineer recommends replacing certain parts, and the client signs the form. All this information then needs to be copied to the service coordinator to keep for project and client records, and they also leave a copy with the client.
“It’s a lot of things on one form which is very handy for everyone to use,” noted Marijne. The problems came with handwriting on the form being unreadable, missing or damaged copies, and the nature of carbon copies not being perfect. If details are fuzzy on the top copy, by the time you get to the third copy below, that information is either missing or completely unreadable. Because they’ve implemented GoFormz, Marijne can now laugh about how better things are when “there’s no handwriting to be deciphered.”
“It is so much faster. Even when collecting the papers, now they’re just on the computer. Before GoFormz we still had to scan all the forms which also took time, but now we just have the digital copy immediately.”
– Amy Marijne, Spare Parts Coordinator, BluePrint Automation
Ease of Use and Peace of Mind
The BluePrint Automation team has found ease of use to be their favorite benefit of using GoFormz, and Marijne is particularly happy about how quickly people catch on to using it. “It’s just very easy to use. Even people that never work with it can instantly know oh, this is what I’m supposed to do, this is what I’m supposed to fill in.” Even the service engineers have enjoyed moving away from carbon copy paper forms, especially if they need to adjust or correct a form. “They can go back and change it without having to pull out a new paper or start scratching so it becomes unreadable,” Marijne said.
But while ease of use has made paperwork better for clients and service engineers alike, the time saved by the rest of the team has been an unforeseen benefit. “You don’t have to do anything, it’s all automatically done,” Marijne commented. Whether it’s automated totals of hours or costs that they no longer have to calculate by hand, or automated copies sent digitally to everyone who needs it, the entire process has become less time-consuming. “It is so much faster,” Marijne continued. “Even when collecting the papers, now they’re just on the computer. Before GoFormz we still had to scan all the forms which also took time, but now we just have the digital copy immediately.”
What’s Next for BluePrint Automation and GoFormz?
While the team is already happy to have GoFormz replace their previous paper system, they’re still exploring other ways to use it. They’ve begun looking into integrating GoFormz with their ERP system, but “it’s not a top priority right now,” noted Marijne. “Right now we’re starting to use the Public Forms feature more, especially with holidays and factory engineers doing service jobs.” The Public Forms feature allows people who are filling in for those on vacation to access the same forms without the need to build a full GoFormz profile for them. They’ve also started testing GoFormz with their site acceptance forms, which aren’t as complex as the service reports. “That’s basically when an engineer goes onsite to install a machine, it’s a few check boxes and a client signature,” Marijne commented.