On January 19, 2022, we met Azzedine Bakiri, site supervisor at Locatra. A subsidiary of the Belgian group Infra International, which has 2,600 employees, this company specializes in electrical and gas network work.
The growing works agency works exclusively on Parisian networks, and the urban context is not always easy to carry out. "At the moment, we're starting the renovation of an Enedis artery to replace high-voltage cables," Azzedine tells us. The job site crosses the rue de Sèvres with several ramifications in the rue du Bac, opposite Sciences Po, and continues towards Matignon and the ministries. "In this neighborhood, there are always demonstrations. At each event, we have to secure the construction sites on the orders of the city hall or the police. (...) We've had a bit of breakage, one day I even saw one of our containers knocked over on TV."
In this kind of context, it is necessary to ask for authorizations constantly, to keep track of all the stopping points that are not the responsibility of the company, and to be prepared for surprise controls by Enedis.
"Before, we used to send the breakpoints by email to a secretary in the North so that she could formalize it in the life of the job site in order to integrate it into the as-built records." Today, some principals have developed their own tools for reporting these events from job site (EPlan for Enedis and TravoDoc for GRDF). But the adoption of all these software and the administrative burden are not adapted to the reality of the field, and many employees fall back on WhatsApp or simple photos by SMS.
"I have 3 sites on my Kraaft. The app is simple, for me it's a toy" continues Azzedine. "It's like having a WhatsApp group at job site, but in a professional tool. (...) We have access to all the history of the job site, we can see the documents in case of control". The interest is to have access to all the photos of job site, time-stamped and geo-located, and to find at any time the history of the events, either in chronological order or on a satellite map.
But for Azzedine, Kraaft is not only a messaging system! The application, which digitizes the diary of job site, also allows to track down the stopping points. The other day, Gucci made us delay our job site, because their red carpet was passing where we had to settle down to work. And this for example is a stopping point, hence the importance of having the stopping points in Kraaft". With a simple photo, a video or a voice note, the information comes up. The foreman can react in real time from his computer to provide answers, and generate a report in one click that he shares with the customer.
"This morning, we were passing the low voltage, but as they have not cleared we have to justify the delay, so we show the proof that we broke the concrete and we send it to the customer".
✅ Easy to handle by site managers
✅ Increased margins due to better valuation of hazards
✅ Responsiveness with the customer for holdpoints
✅ Compliant and up-to-date documents accessible in a click in case of controls
✅ Centralization of data from job site on a dematerialized job site log, integration with the company's EDM
"The app is simple, to me it's a toy (...) For everyone in public works or construction, frankly I recommend it."
