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CASEstudy Recognised on site Sarah Darville-Downs, Finance Director at Tamdown, discusses how Tamdown reduced admin by adopting biometric technology An innovative facial recognition tool has helped infrastructure and groundworks provider Tamdown to significantly reduce administration time on its sites. The business has been using Causeway Donseed - a cloudbased biometric labour management solution from Causeway Technologies - since spring 2021. It was one of the first customers to benefit from the facial recognition functionality within the platform and now holds over 800 active records across direct labour, agency labour and subcontractors. KEEPING TRACK Tamdown works on around 40 sites in the UK at any one time, and as a result of using a mix of staff and subcontractors, they were finding it challenging to keep track. "We use lots of agency staff, and we had some concerns that we might miss something," Sarah said. "For example, what if someone had been red carded on one site and then turned up to start working on another?" Sarah and her team wanted to update their processes. She said: "We decided we needed to find a more accurate way of recording workers and their hours. "We were relying on a mix of paper-based reports and timesheets, spreadsheets, and manual checks, which wasn't robust enough. We realised that something needed to change so that we could better manage our site teams." FINDING THE RIGHT SOLUTION Tamdown started by auditing the available labour management tools on the market and asking their supply chain for advice. One of their main criteria was to find a supplier that would work closely with them. Sarah said: "It was important to choose a provider with a good track record of helping companies introduce new software. We shortlisted Causeway Technologies because we already used their estimating tool and our experience had been positive When you are buying new technology, you don't want your company to be a guinea pig. You want to know that it has been used elsewhere successfully - you need a stable product that is supported by a good aftersales process." Causeway's Donseed software solution helps contractors gather data about who has visited a site, how long they have worked for, and what their credentials are. It can be used via a shared tablet or via an app installed on personal devices. As a biometric solution, it offers more security than other methods because it is linked to a user's unique profile. Causeway helped to develop the business case with Sarah and offered Tamdown a one-month trial - something that she said made a big difference. 24 September/October 2023
CASEstudy She added: "The trial was an opportunity to stress test both the app and the hardware. Allowing people to feel the kit and see it in use was an important part of convincing the site managers and senior team to embrace the change." AN AUTOMATED EXPERIENCE One of the main benefits of the software has been the automatic alerts and dashboard reporting. "Because information is in real-time, we have a much better view of what is happening on site and can remain agile," explained Sarah. "For example, we can now identify quickly whether we're overspending on site, and if a site slows down we can easily assess what labour we've got and how we can move things around to speed things back up again. "We can access the right information in a timely manner and inform the construction and commercial teams what their labour costs are for each day. This enables them to really drill down into the detail and review their workforce costs and numbers. We also get new starter alerts the moment they are added to the system. It means that payroll can set them up straight away without having to wait for paperwork - speeding things up significantly. "We have removed a large manual element of our processes, freeing up time and reducing the potential for data input errors. It has significantly sped up the payroll process and alleviated pressure on those responsible for it, saving a day's worth of time having to input the information manually. There are inevitably always some tweaks that have to be made manually, say if someone forgets to sign out, for example, but the information is gathered and updated automatically. "That gives our team at head office capacity for more strategic tasks. And on site, our managers can spend more time managing projects, building relationships with their teams, and ensuring that quality standards are met." An additional benefit of Causeway Donseed is that it can also be used to manage training and accreditation. As Sarah explained: "Our training records had information stored across multiple spreadsheets. We had to manually check our records to see which courses and accreditations were expiring, but this is now automated, making it easier to book courses as and when required. "You can upload the relevant documents and certificates to people's profiles too, keeping everything in one place. This helps with workforce planning and is one less thing for site managers to worry about, as the software does it for them." RECOMMENDATIONS FOR OTHER FIRMS When asked what recommendations she would give to other companies like Tamdown when trying to digitise their processes, Sarah said she would encourage them to take advantage of all the expertise available to them from their chosen provider. "The training and ongoing support we've had from Causeway have been invaluable to us as we've adapted to a new way of working," she said. "Being such an early adopter of this technology meant there were inevitably some minor hiccups we had to iron out in the initial stages, but the Causeway team was always on hand to help us navigate these." ACHIEVING COMPANY BUY-IN In terms of securing buy-in from all levels of the organisation, Sarah said it hasn't always been a smooth journey, particularly in terms of cultures and dealing with lots of different site managers with different opinions. But now, her colleagues can see that her and her team want to work alongside them, not against them. She said: "We've had some great feedback, particularly from people that joined Tamdown from a more traditional construction company. They have given praise in terms of how we're pushing to move towards that real-time reporting and that reduction in administration - allowing our site managers to do what they do best and not be in an office dealing with paperwork all the time. "It can be hard to implement new systems, as people can understandably have doubts; change can be scary, but I think the key thing is to be confident in pushing through that cultural barrier." www.causeway.com September/October 2023 25
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