The Background

“The absolute fundamental aim is to make money out of satisfying customers” – John Egan

For over 50 years, Schmidt Equipment Inc. has provided construction equipment to the construction, and forestry industry in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island. With five locations, they provide parts, rentals, services as well as training courses on emissions. They work not only to provide for customer’s needs, but to help their customers have the best quality equipment.

The Problem

But while their customers loved their work, Schmidt Equipment had a bad relationship with paper. When doing inspections or machine deliveries, they would take photos to go with their forms. However, employees would spend hours matching photos to forms. Schmidt Equipment wasn’t the only business with this issue: PWC found that up to 11% of business documents are misfiled or lost.

With various departments and locations, sharing information was also slow and difficult. More than the time it takes to find a form, it could take hours or days to actually arrive where it is needed. This slowed down their sales cycle and response time.

The Solution

In May 2013, Schmidt Equipment switched to GoCanvas, the global leader in mobile apps for businesses. With reasonable pricing options, they were able to start using GoCanvas on a small scale without a significant investment. GoCanvas ensured they had limited risks as they began to make the switch to mobile apps.

The Outcomes

Thousands of organizations leverage Canvas’s cloud-based, “Software-as-a-Service” mobile app platform to replace cumbersome paper forms with highly-customizable mobile business apps that improve their data collection and productivity.

Businesses can search from over 14,000 ready-made apps in the GoCanvas Application store that can be customized to an individual business user’s needs. In addition, GoCanvas offers a do-it-yourself app builder that enables non-technical users to build apps in minutes. 

Results

Schmidt Equipment still has many paper forms. However, they are slowly moving towards a paperless office. “People that have done their job for 20 plus years” Mark explained, “love their paper.”Instead, he works to teach the more tech savvy employees how to use GoCanvas and find a champion in each department. Then their coworkers start to see that mobile apps are faster and easier to use than the old paper forms. Nevertheless, Schmidt Equipment has found measurable results. The benefits include:

Real Time Access to Data

The past year has shown a dramatic rise in Schmidt Equipment’s efficiency and ability to share information. Previously, these forms could take hours or days to return the office. Then, they would need additional time to enter this information into their databases and share forms with the right departments. Today their machine evaluations and inspections are all done on Samsung Galaxy phones. All evaluations and inspections going straight to the cloud, so they can easily share information across various departments and locations in real-time. What once took days now happens in minutes.

“The more important savings are not dollars – but rather efficiency gained by allowing all employees easy access to the data” – Mark Drelinger

In addition, it’s far easier for the entire to company to access this information. Previously, an employee would have to find a paper form or search through old emails for the appropriate document. Today, all these forms can be found with a quick search. GoCanvas also provides custom file naming. Thus, they can name a file on an entry in their forms such as customer name, date, or location, making searches even easier. What once took hours or days to find now happens in seconds.

Improved User Experience

Previously, filling out these inspections on paper was cumbersome. Employees would have to carry long paper forms, clipboards, as well as cameras to get photos. It was slow having to go between paper and the camera, while filling it all out by hand. Today, employees enjoy an easier and faster experience with GoCanvas. Our mobile apps provide a rich feature set to make inspections, deliveries, and other forms go faster and return with fewer errors. Some functionality Schmidt Equipment has benefitted from include:

• Drop down value lists
• Images captured inside the form
• Required fields

With these features, forms return to the office with fewer errors and complete information. Before forms could return with whole sections missing, now any time a required field is left blank, the inspection can’t be submitted. Thus employees spend less time on forms and the office enjoys a more robust information set.

Flexibility to Meet Evolving Business Needs

As a cloud-based, mobile platform combined with an easy-to-use mobile app builder, GoCanvas provides Schmidt Equipment the flexibility to add new features and functionality to any of their mobile apps. As needs evolve and change, GoCanvas makes editing apps a frictionless process. For instance, Mark initially made their mobile apps. Today, he has an administrative employee creating new apps for their company. From the beginning, they never needed to rely on IT support or have any knowledge of coding.

With GoCanvas, it’s a simple drag-and-drop interface that anyone can use. Once the edits are made, they can b shared with all of their users in real-time. What once used to take days or weeks to fully implement now happens within minutes. Other mobile app alternatives make this process cumbersome or costly, weakening the effectiveness of their platforms. With GoCanvas it is a frictionless process at no additional cost.

Today, Schmidt Equipment is looking for more ways to turn their once slow and cumbersome processes into faster, real-time experiences with the GoCanvas mobile app. With more and more of their workforce eager and excited by the mobile experience, they are only seeing the beginning of what mobile apps can do for their growing business.

Ready to Rethink How You Work?

GoCanvas has helped a variety of businesses across multiple industries transform their safety processes and rethink their efficiency, ultimately saving them money. Why not do the same? Reach out to one of our experts today to kickstart your process revolution.

The Background

Demmer Corporation is a large manufacturer serving the defense, aerospace, automotive, transportation and energy industries. They not only seek to make great products, they seek to create products that give their customers a competitive advantage. This mission puts their business at the edge of innovation.

The Problem

Manufacturing great products, though, requires numerous safety inspections of sites, equipment, and people. Recording all of this on paper, however was taking both time and money away from creating innovative products. Each process required intensive amounts of paperwork for safety, inspections and workflow processes.

It became more difficult because forms would have to go from plant to plant, taking hours or days to arrive at the next site. Multiple inspectors across several plants meant a huge amount of a paper and sluggish data collection. Worse, errors could take weeks to find let alone correct.

Demmer could no longer afford to let paper determine the pace of their business.

The Solution

Demmer began to look for, “real time data straight from the point of collection,” said Jen Malesky, Director of Corporate Quality, Demmer Corporation. They also needed a solution that could be rapidly deployed to their workforce without the need for extensive training or upfront costs.

They decided to go with GoCanvas, the global leader in mobile apps for business. Thousands of organizations leverage GoCanvas’s cloud-based, “Software-as-a-Service” mobile app platform to replace cumbersome paper forms with highly customizable mobile business apps. 

Businesses can search from over 20,000 ready-made apps in the GoCanvas Application store, or drill into the collection of Transportation and Warehousing mobile app templates, that can be customized to an individual business user’s needs. In addition, GoCanvas offers a do-it-yourself app builder that enables non-technical users to build apps in minutes.

The Outcomes

From the beginning, Demmer saw dramatic results. “We realized very quickly the platform was beneficial,” said Kevin Ouellette, Quality Supervisor.

GoCanvas has provided significant benefits to Demmer including:

Major Financial Savings

They’ve estimated their cost saving at $1 million annually. Switching to mobile apps has made their information gathering streamlined and reduced errors. One app, for example, helped streamline one machine’s efficiency. The resulting savings? $250,000 annually.

Additional savings have also been found by bypassing the need for data entry. All inspections and forms are transmitted directly to the cloud. There, Demmer can easily access these files or export them into their own system. What once required additional administrative time and money has become a simpler and faster process.By skipping paper entirely, Demmer also finds huge cost savings in storage. Filing cabinet costs in a year are between $1,500 to nearly $2,500. By switching to GoCanvas, Demmer can invest money in numerous new ways to grow and innovate their business.

Major Time Savings

More than money, the company is excited by the hours saved. Their safety department estimates they have saved 300 hours a year. With rapid response times, they’ve also seen a reduction in workplace injuries. Production has also become a faster process. Because mobile apps make forms immediately available in the cloud, sites no longer have to wait hours or days for a form to move from one site to another. Instead, sites work together more efficiently with real time information.

Flexibility to Meet Evolving Business Needs

As a cloud-based, mobile platform combined with an easy-to-use mobile app builder, GoCanvas provides Demmer the flexibility to add new features and functionality to any of their mobile apps. As needs evolve and change, GoCanvas makes editing apps a frictionless process.For instance, as new regulatory mandates are introduced and data collection procedures change, apps can be modified to meet the new requirements and instantly made available to the end user. Other mobile app alternatives make this process cumbersome or costly, weakening the effectiveness of their platforms. With GoCanvas, this is a frictionless process at no additional cost.

Demmer has embraced GoCanvas’s potential with a vast library of mobile apps. From their original 3 apps, they’ve now expanded to 140 apps. “All kinds of ideas are coming in, from every department,” Ouellette said. “Sometimes we have to rein them in,” Malesky joked.With hundreds of users and growing, Demmer has saved paper, time and money that has more than paid off its investment in mobile apps. GoCanvas has given Demmer an easy-to-use mobile experience that allows the company to create a safer work environment and continue to create innovative products

Ready to Rethink How You Work?

GoCanvas has helped a variety of businesses across multiple industries transform their safety processes and rethink their efficiency, ultimately saving them money. Why not do the same? Reach out to one of our experts today to kickstart your process revolution.