DIAMONDBACK LAND SURVEYING SCHEDULER SAVES MORE THAN
FIVE HOURS PER DAY WITH QFACTOR SOFTWARE
- Diamondback’s Heather Keenan reports that Qfactor creates both time efficiencies and organizational clarity
- Company reports that Qfactor software assists with training, crew scheduling, proposal creation, and project management
Why does Diamondback Land Surveying’s appreciate Qfactor for Surveyors software? One simple answer is that field scheduler Heather Keenan literally saves five hours each day by taking advantage of some of the Qfactor tools.
Heather Keenan is the Admin/EV & Land Development Field Scheduling Coordinator in her family’s business, Diamondback Land Surveying. As a young, rising executive, she has a unique perspective on how the firm’s use of Qfactor’s end-to-end workflow software positively impacts her company.
The Challenge
Like most land surveying companies, Diamondback Land Surveying had originally been doing its work using Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and emailing requests and responses and project updates as needed.
“Since I was tasked with growing our firm’s ability to work in new states, we now have more than 35 employees and are licensed in 23 states. Because we added 12 of those states in the past two years, we also utilize local subcontractors to help us complete our work,” Keenan notes.
“Without Qfactor, companies like ours who are still using Excel spreadsheets, word documents, and email take hours, or days, just to get information from one person to the next and it is nearly impossible to know where each of the projects stand in their workflow completion,” she adds.
Training Solution
“As a STEM student and a member of a younger generation in the workforce, I naturally value software and other technologies that are helping Diamondback Land Surveying grow,” Keenan says.
She notes that Qfactor for Surveyors keeps her company organized and creates clarity about project workflow and completion.
“One area that Qfactor has really transformed is in new employee training,” Keenan explains. “When we train our people with Qfactor, they have all the information for each job so that they don’t have to ask someone else or wonder where to find the information they need.”
Keenan explains that if a new employee has a job name or job number, that person can find the project address, project manager and contact information, as well as the maps and other documents associated with the project, all in a single source. “Qfactor has literally cut training time in half, because the Qfactor software is easy to use without requiring training on the software itself. It’s really intuitive for our new users,” she points out.
“We can instead spend the training time on teaching new employees how our company procedures and goals set us above our competition. It’s much more productive to learn about a company’s attitudes and points of difference than it is to learn about where to find certain spreadsheets!” she adds.
Scheduling Solution
Keenan notes that with all the various tabs she has to keep open on her computer, having her scheduling information all in one place inside Qfactor is key to her being able to understand where each project is in its field work.
Qfactor allows her to view all projects in a single location so she can quickly identify which projects may need additional field resources, which are finishing early, and where scheduling adjustments may be needed. This makes scheduling more effective and efficient.
“With all that information, Qfactor’s software saves me five hours each day!” she exclaims.
“Those five hours are time I can use to either double my productivity at work, or to gain time to attend college classes and study,” she notes.
“I’m becoming more educated as I do hope to both earn my professional certification as a land surveyor, and eventually to take over my parents’ business.” explains Keenan, who currently handles scheduling for Diamondback Land Surveyors project in all 23 states.
Project Manager Solutions
Keenan points to project management as another area where Qfactor provides clarity. As the firm has grown, Diamondback has added both employees and subcontractors who perform fieldwork in newer states.
Using Qfactor allows Diamondback’s project managers to mark down the completion of the field work of their employees and of their subcontractors in real time.
“Our designers can glance at the same software, see that it’s complete, and get to work on their drawings,” Keenan says. “The project managers save even more time each day with the help of Qfactor than I do, as they’re dealing with multiple sources of information on multiple projects every day. Qfactor allows them to put it all together in one clear manner.”
Project Maps Solution
Preparing proposals is another large use of time for any land survey company.
Because Diamondback Land Surveying has done so much work in so many cities, counties and states, having the maps of the work performed is very valuable in creating additional time efficiency.
According to Keenan, “Using Qfactor’s project map tool makes our ability to find the other work we’ve performed within a specific location take seconds. When we’re building proposals, this helps us to be more efficient because we can determine how much additional survey work needs to be completed for this new proposal request that came in the door. Qfactor’s mapping tool increases our completion time on proposals by at least half an hour per proposal.”
Diamondback completes more than 1,000 proposals each year. At a savings of at least half an hour per proposal, that translates to approximately 500 hours saved annually, while also improving proposal accuracy, Keenan says.
“The impact of 500 additional hours is equivalent to 12 and a half extra 40-hour weeks,” she points out. “For us, that can be three additional months of new business development, industry volunteerism, education, charitable work, or taking time off!”
Conclusion
Qfactor for Surveyors end-to-end workflow software is saving Diamondback Land Surveying thousands of hours per year, increasing the firm’s efficiency, and creating more accurate outcomes.
