Downer EDI Smartforms

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Downer EDI Works

Project Included:
Sharepoint

Company Information

Downer EDi is an infrastructure company focussed on the rail, mining, engineering and energy markets. They operate in Australia, New Zealand, Asia Pacific and the United Kingdom building roads, towns, cities and countries.
Since its inception in 1870, Downer Edi has built and maintained a huge percentage of the infrastructure assets that now sustain our communities. In New Zealand, Downer EDi employ over 3,300 staff and have an annual turnover of NZ$750 million, with significant representation in almost every New Zealand community.

Downer EDi’s business partners are the owners of key infrastructure assets and include Local Government, Central Government, as well as public and private companies.

The Challenge

In early 2010, Downer EDi Works and Downer EDi Engineering merged into a single organisation known as Downer EDi New Zealand Limited. The primary objective of this merger was to develop and implement an operating structure that supports efficient operations, sustainable growth and enables Downer EDi New Zealand to be “the leading provider of essential infrastructure services in New Zealand.” Downer EDi had a non-digital internal form request system that left a huge paper trail. Forms were often lost or misplaced, and it was very easy for managers to forget about a request form amongst their papers. Downer EDi needed a custom digital form system that would simplify the process and replace the existing paper-based system. The system needed to support over 3,300 staff distributed across 120 individual branches generating thousands of requests per month. They wanted a system which was easy to use, easy to keep track of, and which would ensure a smoother running of the business overall.

The Solution

The team at Enlighten Designs used Microsoft InfoPath 2007 to create a digital form system for all employees to use, in over 80 decentralised locations. Employees of Downer EDi would fill out the online form that aligned with what they needed and select an administrator to approve the form. The form would then be emailed to the named administrator to edit if necessary and approve or reject the request. Enlighten selected InfoPath forms and SharePoint document libraries as an effective solution to improve efficiency and make the shared services team a reality.  These have provided the following benefits:

1.   Reduced the time a staff member needs to place a request
2.   Reduced the time a staff member needs to approve a request
3.   Reduced the average approval time of a request
4.   Provided an audit trail and central repository for storing all requests.

The system kept the forms in an organised and convenient system that was easy to use and to keep a record of.
The digital form system included requests for asset disposal, asset transfer, bank deposits, capital expenditure, credit notes, customer maintenance, equipment setup, supplier maintenance, vehicle requisitions, and invoices.

The Result

Enlighten delivered to all of these requirements, completing 2600 development hours within six weeks.
Downer EDI Works were very pleased with Enlighten’s solution and the results that this project had for their business. When the project went live, the Chief Financial Officer had 30 asset requisition forms emailed to him to approve.  He worked through these requests with no training and then instructed his assistant to transfer all existing paper-based requests that had built up over the last three months into the new InfoPath forms. Requests which previously could take weeks to be approved are now consistently delivered within the 8-hour turnaround defined in the teams SLA.

The project has also been a huge success beyond the Downer EDi staff. Microsoft has provided funding for the project to be developed into a worldwide case study. The project has been presented by Enlighten and Downer EDi at the Wellington SharePoint Conference, TechEd, and to the SharePoint Business Application Development team at Microsoft Redmond.

“We selected Enlighten as a vendor for our Electronic Forms Project via an RFP process.  Enlighten were selected based on their demonstrated technical experience, enthusiasm and their ability to deliver this project to a very tight deadline.
The Electronic Forms were the key to allowing our Shared Services Centre to be a success.  Enlighten delivered highly usable forms that have had wide acceptance among our staff who have varying degrees of computer literacy.  
Our CFO received email requests via the Electronic Forms solution and began approving the requests with no training.  He then instructed his assistant to transfer all paper based requests that had backed up over the last few months to the new Smart Forms as he would only approve requests via this method going forward.
The introduction of the Shared Services Centre and the Electronic Forms has transformed the way our business operates.  This project has delivered significant productivity enhancement to our Finance and Administration activities.  We have received positive feedback from employees regarding the ease with which requests can be submitted and processed.  From a management perspective we now have a full electronic audit trail and history stored in a central location.  This is of huge value to the business.
Enlighten overcame numerous technical challenges during the project, worked well with our project team and ultimately delivered a highly successful project.”