With 160,000 miles across the U.S., the national rail network is a permanent fixture used to shuttle goods and people all over the country. But who maintains the rails to keep the trains chug-chug-chugging along? Vision Industrial, for one.
Vision Industrial Services is an industrial welding contractor specializing in railroad construction and maintenance throughout the United States. They pair the most-talented welders in the industry with state-of-the-art equipment to give their clients the best service possible.
Based in DeQuincy, Louisiana, their field technicians work in every state of the U.S.
With increasing infrastructure work and poised for growth, Vision Industrial adopted Assignar to take their business from analog to digital—gaining productivity and efficiency in the process.
The old way: Conducting business by spreadsheet
Before they adopted Assignar, Vision Industrial was all analog. They lived in spreadsheets, communicated through email, and wrote schedules on physical calendars. This made nearly every administrative aspect of their business slow and cumbersome.
General Manager Melanie Smith spent much of her time working to keep communications open so all processes could run smoothly and on schedule.
“Because we are spread out all throughout the U.S., it was challenging to get information from the office to the field and vice versa,” Melanie said.
Without a digital solution, Melanie and her team sent endless emails back and forth to shuttle information from the customers to the office staff to the field workers. There were too many steps and opportunities for data to go missing.
But communications weren’t the only problem plaguing the company. Initially, the team scheduled all their projects on a physical calendar.
“If we weren’t physically here at the office, we wouldn’t know what was on the schedule,” Melanie said.
As the company grew, manual processes became too challenging to manage, and they started looking for a digital solution.
All aboard for Assignar
With their tremendous growth, the Vision Industrial team knew they needed a digital solution to help them connect with their field workers across the U.S. When they chose Assignar, they got just that.
Getting the platform up and running was simple for the team. According to Melanie, onboarding with Assignar was easy—even for staff members who weren’t great with new technology.
“We have a lot of people who aren’t very tech-savvy,” said Melanie. “But the app has been very user-friendly, so we’ve been able to teach them and haven’t had any problems.”
Without any technical roadblocks, implementing Assignar into their workflows made for a smooth transition.
The Results: Increased efficiency leads to increased revenue
When the Vision Industrial team adopted Assignar, it didn’t take long to see a productivity increase.
“We no longer have to go through all the documentation individually, and we communicate more efficiently,” Melanie said. “This definitely has saved us a lot of time, which of course, translates to money.”
Here’s how they put Assignar to work:
Accessing information anywhere with digital forms.
Instead of using spreadsheets and emails, they used forms to communicate and gather information. “The forms feature has probably one of the biggest benefits,” Melanie said. “It was difficult to get information back to the office. Now we get that pretty much on a daily basis.”
Instead of sifting through emails, team members can now access field data instantly in Assignar. Instant communication on a collaborative platform is essential when managing a high volume of work across multiple states.
Cross-checking data to avoid mistakes
Human error is one of the most significant pain points with spreadsheets and paper. Cross-checking is challenging to do when everyone is using their own spreadsheets.
By moving to a shared operations platform, the Vision Industrial team can cross-check work across teams and avoid potentially costly mistakes.
Scheduling everything to stay on track.
Instead of tracking everything through paper calendars, they can now schedule everything from daily fieldwork to invoicing. This keeps everything running smoothly and without error.
“With the scheduling feature, we’re able to make sure we’re not missing any invoicing, and we have a second line of checks,” Melanie said.
Increased efficiency = increased revenue
Railroad work has increased for Vision Industrial over the past few years, but without efficient operations, it was challenging to increase the workload. With Assignar helping them to optimize their operations, they were prepared to take on more projects and expand their revenue goals.
“We’re able to get more projects out because our scheduling feature has helped us manage more,” Melanie said.
Don’t derail your success
Vision Industrial keeps their customers’ tracks in top condition, and they’re serving more clients more efficiently using Assignar.
Whether you’re still in spreadsheets and whiteboards or you’ve tried a subpar solution, Assignar can help you streamline operations and manage your success.
