The WinCo Installation App is a brand-new innovation from The Window Company (Contracts) which gives commercial clients access to live data and reporting on all of their window and door installation projects.
The bespoke app documents surveys and installations in real time and automatically integrates all the data generated from the teams on site with the company’s 50,000+ record project database and back-office systems.
It has transformed the efficiency of the business by eliminating vast amounts of paperwork and manual processes and streamlined many of its quality management systems. But, more significantly it has created a standout feature for The Window Company (Contracts)’ clients right across the social housing replacement and new build sector, who can now see live status updates and sign off projects electronically.
Like other installers, the company previously relied largely on paper driven processes, including printed forms for surveying, job sheets, Point of Work Risk Assessments (POWRA) checklists and inspections. Fitting teams sent pre- and post-installation photos via email or WhatsApp and admin staff at the office had to manually collate the photos and input the data.
The new WinCo Installation App has replaced all of that. All the surveying and inspection forms, job sheets, and POWRA checklists are integrated within the app and surveyors and fitters simply work through the forms on their mobiles on site. They upload the before and after photos as they go and all the data is allocated in real time to the project database.
Mark Crane, group commercial director at Breyer Construction is impressed: “The new app is a great demonstration of the kind of innovative thinking that sets a subcontractor like The Window Company (Contracts) apart from the rest. It shows a relentless focus on improving efficiency, and that gives us a pretty compelling reason to do more business with them. The app has clearly been designed with the needs of customers as well as fitters in mind, and the before and after images, electronic sign off and live reporting functions are already proving particularly useful.”
Katie Thornton, director of compliance and administration at The Window Company (Contracts) added: “As a business which prides itself on efficiency, we recognised that there was a better way to document our installations. But, even after extensive research, we were unable to identify a sector-specific, cost-effective, commercially available app that had anything like the capability we required. We wanted to be able to collate data for jobs simultaneously and store it automatically on our internal database systems. We therefore decided to create our own app – starting initially with a version for our fitting team and customers and progressing to the fully integrated end to end solution that we have now.
“We’re pretty confident that it sets a new benchmark for clients in terms of performance and functionality and, at the same time delivers improvements in our own performance by eliminating the risk of paperwork errors and saving huge amounts of admin.”
