SBL Solutions was established in 2014 to provide the wind industry with highly skilled electricians, mechanical fitters as well as wind turbine technicians. Starting with a team of 5, SBL Solutions has grown to over 100 employees across Australia. SBL Solutions provide holistic support from installation, maintenance and inspection.
Digitising compliance
We were utilising another online timesheet solution, but it was missing the ability to track safety and assets which were crucial for our operations. So we started looking for a digital solution for timesheets, assets and compliance, that is when we found Assignar – James Hickey, General Manager at SBL Solutions.
Prior to implementing Assignar all our safety documentation and compliance was paper-based. We had SWMS for each task and our take-5s were all around the office like post-it notes. There was a lot of double handling. It was just a nightmare. Now, we are fully paperless.
All our safety and quality forms are stored in Assignar and linked to our timesheets. Consequently, forms must be completed before our team can submit their timesheets for the day. Furthermore, all our technicians’ tickets, licenses and permits are all located on their personal profile in Assignar and notifications populate when competencies are nearing expiration.
The value that Assignar gives our business is peace of mind knowing we have a system that manages our compliance and minimises risk.
“As a business we know we are protected because at a click of a button we can show all our safety documentation, processes and the compliance of our technicians. To us, that is worth millions.”
In this business, it just takes one incident poorly documented, a gap in communication of safety standards or just one missing safety form to shut a business down. Having this peace of mind is just unquantifiable.
Maximising Assignar’s Open API
We use Assignar as our recording system. From safety documentation to as granular as the serial number of our tools. Our clients need to know what type and how many turbines were installed, what specific work we completed and who completed it. Assignar is the key system that manages our physical operations. In terms of finance, we utilise Xero and to action key items in Assignar we created our own web portal – the SBL datahub. We maximise Assignar’s API to link these platforms together. The forms in Assignar drive the processes we set up in our datahub. For example, we have our safety register as a form in Assignar. When questions are answered with a needs action item, the corresponding owner in our datahub is automatically notified.
We understand that Assignar isn’t an ERP or accounting software. So, it was important that we linked the different silos of data from our key systems. There are many different verticals in construction and expecting Assignar to solve every challenge for every industry vertical is a hard task. So, we ensure that we fully utilise the modules in Assignar for our physical operations. We love the scheduler. We have used it since we started, and the calendar view of our orders gives us great insight into our business. Using Assignar this way really makes our life easier.
Ensuring stakeholder buy-in
Given that the team was already used to digital timesheets, the biggest change we experienced in onboarding Assignar was the forms now being digital. But once the team we’re used to this new aspect, they soon provided great feedback to enhance our forms and make them even more valuable to ourselves and clients.
We are not a top-down organisation, we understand nobody knows everything and if we share our ideas, we can learn how we can do things better.
