On May 19, 2022, we met Vincent Doyeux and Bruno Villechanoux, director and manager of job site at Doyeux Sablières Montponnaises (DSM). Kraafteurs for more than a year, they tell us about their experience.
The public works company, based in Montpon Menesterol (24), is a real family adventure. Created in 1972 by Michel Doyeux, it radiates all around the Dordogne and counts today more than thirty employees. Today it is Vincent, the founder's grandson, who welcomes us on job site.
"We are on the repair of the pond of the lake of Gurson. We have already redone the protections for the anti-batillage and now we are taking care of the weir part to drain the water so that it joins the brook" he begins. For this kind of work, but also on smaller projects for private clients, the photo follow-up is essential to be sure to value all the work.
"Before we had cameras from job site, or uses by phone, but we had a big problem of data recovery, in fact we recovered 10% of the photos that were made on the job site" underlines Vincent.
So much time is lost in retrieving and sorting photos in the files of job site, whether in the study phase or to document the DOE. "I can spend up to a week sorting through photos when a file is received," adds the director.
"Kraaft we've been using it for a year now" explains Bruno. "It's a daily thing, as the work progresses I send a picture, with a comment from time to time, to see the progress of the work, and that's about once or twice a day".
And the principle is simple. The application, whose mobile interface is similar to WhatsApp, allows team leaders and managers at job site to upload photos, videos, voice notes, or comments to the dedicated news feed at job site. "It has really saved us a lot of time, for everything related to managing problems at job site," says Vincent. It doesn't eliminate phone calls or visits to job site, but the reactivity of the communication (instant notifications) and the sorting of photos according to the phases of job site saves all the teams time on the follow-up.
"We are starting to share our Kraaft projects with our customers (...) They appreciate it in the sense that for them it remains transparent, and they see that if there is a regular follow-up, it means that the company has nothing to hide" underlines Vincent.
Two options are available on Kraaft. Either download Word and Excel reports and share them with the MOA. Or invite the client directly with secure access (free licenses for external guests). This reporting service is also an argument to be used during contract renewals (appendix prepared by Kraaft to be attached to the brief).
"I also save time on my calls for tender" adds Vincent. The director creates logs on Kraaft from the study part. For each visit, his teams take notes on the job site news feed and geo-locate key points on the satellite map. If the project goes into execution phase, they add the team leaders to the job site group and they already have all the preparation context.
"In the end, I save 3 days per month on the classification of photos (...) I sometimes have quantitative data, even my vouchers from job site (...) and I can take stock of the situation directly with my tracking software" concludes Vincent.
✅ Easy company-wide membership in a WhatsApp-like field tool.
✅ 10x more photos brought up from the field, sorted by job site and by phase
✅ Better transmission of information between the study phase and the execution phase
✅ Improved profitability through the valuation of extra work
✅ Time saving on automatic report generation
✅ More responsive and transparent collaboration with project owner/manager
