Knowing what you know now, would you do it again?
“Yes Definitely – why wouldn’t you? Great outcome – well worth it – I’d do it again”
What would you say to others thinking of working with Transfirm?
“Do it, Absolutely. Remember it’s a team effort and you have to contribute. If you are engaged with it, you’ll get your desired outcomes and beyond – that’s what we achieved.
“What makes Transfirm unique is their ability to understand and relate to your business and be responsive immediately. Transfirm definitely knows what they’re doing.”
CASE STUDY
Sheppard Earthmoving was established in 2005 and has grown into a full service provider of ‘wet’ hire equipment to the Toowoomba Region and South East Queensland. Sheppard Earthmoving services a range of industries including Civil Infrastructure, Commercial & Industrial Construction as well as mining and resource development. Sheppard Earthmoving has a reputation for offering innovative, customised solutions to its clients by continually investing in people, systems and machinery.
What was happening when you engaged Transfirm?
As a business we were going well. We heard about Transfirm through another business owner and liked what Transfirm had done for them. We thought Transfirm could help us digitise our processes and build custom apps that would make our business simpler to manage.
What was the first thing you did with Transfirm?
Initially, Transfirm did a ‘discovery’ where they looked at everything. They looked at the business as a whole and listened to what we wanted to achieve. Among other things, we wanted digitised apps that were customised to our way of doing things. We also wanted to get third party certification to ISO 9001, ISO 45001 and ISO 14001. Transfirm was then able to show us how both could be achieved.
We started by overhauling our IR and HR processes. As part of this we got a time-sheet app up and running that automatically performed calculations against the award criteria. We then digitised pre-starts of equipment and developed a scheduling app. The scheduling app was refined over time and is now the end-to-end process form taking a phone call, scheduling equipment and staff, job docket sign-off and customer feedback, as well as preparing invoices. After that we started rolling apps out to our staff – such as for toolboxes and SWMS etc.
How did you feel at the time?
Once we understood what was needed for ISO certification, we felt a bit daunted. We had a lot of work to do to pull apart processes, think them through and make them simpler for our people to use. We felt good once we got through the initial hump and could see things start to work and coming together.
What made the most impact?
This really depends on who you ask. As business owners, digitising and simplifying our scheduling process made the most impact. This is because it allows us to train someone and walk away, but we can still see what is happening in real-time. It helps us keep track of bottom-line performance, because in our game, its all about maximising utilisation of assets.
Our administration staff would say that digitising time sheets made the most impact on their workload – by saving a lot of time interpreting and making calculations against he awards.
Large customers appreciated the awareness of our safety performance – they now get safety records in real-time.
Ross Sheppard would probably say that plant servicing made a big impact – it took that whole side of the business to a new level and is helping protect our plant and equipment assets.
What would you say you achieved overall from working with Transfirm?
We achieved our end goal and more, and this is down to the outstanding working relationship between us and Transfirm. By working well together we were able to achieve 200% more than we initially thought.
What we have now is a process-based management system that we use everyday because it’s good for business. We don’t even notice that it is certified to all three ISO standards, as it is just what we do. This is how ISO certification should be but I’m quite sure it is not for a lot of people.
Knowing what you know now, would you do it again?
Yes Definitely – why wouldn’t you? Great outcome – well worth it – I’d do it again
What would you say to others thinking of working with Transfirm?
Do it, Absolutely. Remember its a team effort and you have to contribute. If you are engaged with it, you’ll get your desired outcomes and beyond – that’s what we got. What makes Transfirm unique is their ability to understand and relate to your business and be responsive immediately, Transfirm definitely knows what they’re doing.
Any last words?
Transfirm’s people are ‘relatable’ – they were able to empathise and relate to us as business owners as well as the people in the business. By understanding these dynamics they were able to tailor the journey accordingly – that was key. The journey is not just technical, there are many sides to it. There was a lot of hand holding as you make your way through and they can guide you, they keep everyone on board and on track so that you achieve your end goal – they are very good at what they do.
Leesa Sheppard
Business Owner and Finance Manager – Sheppard Earthmoving
