Dynamic Hydro Excavations are leaders in hydro excavation, excavation, CCTV inspections, street sweepers and vacuum trucks. The business has grown from just one man, some earthmoving equipment, one vacuum truck, and a shed to a high-performing business servicing six locations across the east coast of Australia. Specifically, they service the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Sydney, Parkes and Melbourne.
The business set itself apart from its competition through its thorough processes, policies, and procedures that allow them to respond to Council requirements quickly. Their 24/7 hotline means they are able to respond to enquiries immediately. Dynamic Hydro Excavations report daily on project progress and status. Consequently, they have proudly developed long-lasting relationships with local councils as preferred suppliers.
Business philosophy
The philosophy at Dynamic Hydro Excavations is to be a business characterised by constant change and progress; a business that’s full of energy and constantly coming up with new ideas. To keep in with the project, economic and environmental evolutions, Dynamic Hydro Excavations continue to innovate and explore new technologies that support efficient, safety-focused practices that deliver real value for money.
Given this business philosophy, Dynamic Hydro Excavations began their search for a digital system to support their operations. Throughout the growth of the company, Dynamic Hydro Excavations was using traditional methods of managing their operations and it was quite time-consuming.
Brendan Reed, NSW Operations Manager notes that “All our important documentation was paper, from timesheets to forms to dockets. Given we are distributed across 6 different offices, we would have piles of our paper dockets in the NSW office, scan them multiple times, send them to our head office in Queensland. After which, the admin team would print all the dockets, create the invoices in a separate accounting system, then print the invoice, scan and send it to the customer.
This process had a lot of double handling. We would be spending 4-5 hours a day checking these dockets, so now that we have gone digital, we have saved time in the printing and re-printing of dockets and of the scanning of these documents.”
Efficiencies from the field to the workshop
The field team has really been empowered through the use of the mobile app. Jace Peter, Supervisor details the benefits he has seen in his role since the switch. “The visibility Assignar gives us means I don’t need to wait for paperwork to come back with the truck. Before it was hard to check through the work but now, I can get things back from Assignar straight away. As soon as the truck is back in the yard, I don’t need to talk to anyone or wait for paperwork, I can get straight into work. I’ve got it on my phone ready to go, so I can put plans into place before the truck even gets back to the yard.”
Digitising forms
Prior to implementing Assignar, safety forms such as machine pre-starts were through a pre-start booklet. Now with Assignar, the pre-start forms are digital and developed in a way to include photos.
Brendan Reed, NSW Operations Manager highlights that “we are able to collect a lot more information than we did previously. Everyone has a camera on their phone and now they have the ability to take photos of any hazards or maintenance issues. This has resulted in an increase of pre-starts being completed thoroughly. They aren’t just ticking and flicking. Now, we get them in real-time in the morning, instead of when they come back to the yard in the afternoon.
In terms of any issues that arise during the pre-start we know straight away, so we don’t allocate machines that need maintenance. Also, our incident reporting is sent through Assignar to the Health and Safety Manager straight away instead of filling our paper onsite and going back and forth between the office and those out in the field.
We are definitely seeing the benefit from Assignar in terms of the quality of the data, we’re getting better compliance with real-time pre-starts and were saving money on printing. Especially considering we no longer require over 30 pre-start books, dockets and timesheets over a month in NSW alone. Since all this paper doesn’t need to be physically stored, our time can be maximised and spent on more meaningful tasks.”
Early insights
Dynamic Hydro Excavations was a part of the beta testing team for Assignar’s analytics module. Through that process, the potential of that module is a powerful tool in their business was realised. Brendan Reed, NSW Operations Manager drew upon how they use the geo-map to their advantage. “We are currently looking at moving our depot in NSW. We use the map on Assignar to show us where we have done our work and where the forecasted jobs are, so we can see which area is the best for us moving forward.”
Onboarding Assignar
Dynamic Hydro Excavations did a soft rollout, allowing users to experiment before giving a hard date and releasing the digital modules. This method allowed everyone to do their own exploration, as everyone learns at their own place. Once it was officially only digital timesheets, it took a week for the team to fully adjust and become comfortable with the finality of the change but now it’s just our common practice.
Brad Allen, CFO drew upon his concerns with the rollout of Assignar, “one of my main concerns was that some of our older generations might not be able to use or understand the app but I can honestly say that some of our older guys are my star performers in using the app.”
