Case Study: Digital Safety and Productivity go Hand In Hand

March 2021

Change Management  

Change management in construction has many hurdles. The typical employer tends to baulk at the idea of encouraging staff and sub-contractors to whip out their mobile phones for site management. McCormack Property Services is enjoying significant increases in engagement, efficiency and compliance after making this change.

Whilst ISO compliance foundations have traditionally seen pen and paper use for timesheets, site inductions, and site attendance, this is now a thing of the past for McCormack.

The Victorian principal contractor is well on its way to digital transformation, partly thanks to 1Breadcrumb – a powerful safety management platform that easily plugs into McCormack’s project management software, Procore.

McCormack specialises in high-end projects such as corporate fit-outs, refurbishments and design-and-construction projects across many industries including commercial office space, education, government and industrial sectors. At this point in time, the company directly employs 85+ people, with an additional 280+ sub-contractors that typically work on in excess of 140+ major projects per year.

Dyon Gerlach, General Manager at McCormack, explained: “For obvious reasons, we wanted to digitise our processes and move away from pen-and-paper-based systems for staff and sub-contractors. We identified digitising a range of COVID obligations, combined with site inductions and timesheets, would significantly reduce the frustrating gap in communication between the people on-site and our office team.”

Reining in the Over-Runs

It was tricky for the business to keep a live rein on budget and cost overruns on projects due to the typical time lags of using paper-based systems.

McCormack has found bringing more focussed tech into their business has streamlined its processes, reduced risk, increased productivity and quickly realised immediate savings.

A key to achieving those benefits was 1Breadcrumb, a mobile-first platform that creates an ecosystem between contractors and trades. This includes automatically digitising site inductions, timesheets and communications, automating administration tasks and synchronising with ERP software such as Procore, Xero & MYOB.

“The app’s instant on-site data allows us to manage project labour and timelines, improving the McCormack Property Services productivity, budgeting and planning. This allows us to automate our timesheets and, through 1Breadcrumb’s partner integrations, feeds this data directly into our payroll and project management systems, automating the whole process from the site to the office,” says Dyon.

McCormack can automatically collate on-site visitors duration and ensure all visitors are compliant with safety procedures. This gives the company full visibility without necessarily being on site.

Dyon estimates his company has saved over 40 hours a day across the business since they harnessed 1Breadcrumb. In fact, they’re leveraging off the platform’s capability for two-way communication in new innovative ways. They have now included streamlining leave requests and even collecting data on purchases and time spent at suppliers.

The above combined with pro-active automated alerts have provided the entire administration team the ability to better focus on their core tasks.

“We are saving 100’s of emails, numerous admin hours, and, most importantly, have massively improved site efficiency hours, every day, right across the business”, he says. “Our only regret was not doing it sooner…”

Real-Time Project Analytics on your Mobile

Even before staff and sub-contractors set foot on a project, they can be up-to-date via the app’s inductions, SWMS and critical information alerts. Everyone who checks into the site via the app swiftly receives relevant communications and alerts via their phone.

1Breadcrumb’s geofence technology allows employers to know exactly who’s on-site and when. This makes it easy to reconcile records about sub-contractors’ working hours from 1Breadcrumb, which automatically feeds into Procore. All of this provides project managers with rich data to inform them in real-time of critical information allowing for informed decisions to be made.

1Breadcrumb does not track a worker’s location – it simply records the timestamp of them entering and leaving a designated site. For example, a Project Manager could be off-site and check who is on-site via their mobile app.

As Dyon explains: “1Breadcrumb gives us real-time analytics and reporting on induction status and other compliance elements, and now we have extra functionality that seamlessly integrates into the Procore Safety Module. With multiple systems a reality for all, this integration is a huge benefit in data handling.”

“For us as a triple ISO certified business, the ability to instantly demonstrate compliance to our auditors against the various procedure, processes and systems has been very well-received. Our clients have also been impressed by the ability for anyone on our sites to share safety metrics and instantly build trust in that we are actually doing what we say. This is a massive value in its own right.”

Safety and Quality go Top-Notch

Worksite safety’s got a boost, too. 1Breadcrumb allows company’s to be Worksafe compliant, helping businesses keep on the right side of workplace health and safety laws.

By enabling digital records of certifications, trade licences, safety cards, insurance policies, inductions, etc., 1Breadcrumb reports can show who’s compliance information is up-to-date or close to expiry. 1Breadcrumb reporting also provides real-time data to company’s ISO auditors, who are able to instantly complete an audit to check for and prove compliance.