WrightPlan Hosts Canadian Crane Rental Webinar
Beginning in May of 2021, WrightPlan and its customer, RKM Crane Services, kicked off the Canadian Crane Rental Association’s (CCRA) Business Improvement webinar series. The trio of presentations featured CCRA members who specialize in fleet, ERP, and business management solutions, as well as customer companies to help shed light on end-user experiences.
Addressing a Rising Concern
For Claire Belanger-Parker, Executive Director of CCRA and series creator, the theme for the webinars was obvious.
"'Business Improvement' was really a response to the similar concerns I was fielding from our diverse group of members. Like other industries in Canada and around the world, crane rental underwent significant changes in the last year — especially with new safety protocols and remote working. And while there are solutions available to help mitigate these changes, choosing the right one can be confusing if you're not sure where to start."
The intent of the series then, explains Belanger-Parker, was to “expose CRAC members to the services available to them, ease their anxieties towards digitalization & change management, and ultimately help improve their businesses."
‘Taking the Plunge’ into Digitalization
“We jumped into the implementation process with both feet. Even while running two other dispatches, I was learning to use WrightPlan, and within less than a week I dropped the old ones. It’s just really fast; easy to learn and implement.”
Finding the right solution
Whether due to fear of change or past failures with other systems, a staggering majority of crane rental companies remain wary of modernizing their processes.
Yet Mike Margetts and his team at RKM Crane found that digitizing with the right system helped solve their pain while also making change management much easier and attainable.
“We needed to find a way to streamline our system so that Managers and Foremen spent less time on administration and more time managing and seeing customers,” said Margetts. “The more we grew, the more issues we had with using Excel for estimating, or different systems for tracking maintenance across our multiple branches.”
Digitizing with the right solution gave RKM Crane a foundation with which to:
standardize operations,
implement best practices,
and adapt to new working conditions (especially during COVID) by being able to work & access WrightPlan from anywhere.
Mapping success
Secondary to a strong foundation is a well-thought-out implementation road map.
“Every journey needs a map, and the journey towards digitalization is no different,” according to Michael Cox, President of WrightPlan. “By dividing the entire process into phases with goals, it’s easier to get quick wins under your belt while simultaneously learning the system without disrupting daily operations.”
Lastly, the key to every successful implementation is a Project Champion: a representative from the customer company who is tasked with making sure their people understand the ‘why’ of the project, as well as relaying any requirements from upper management.
Adopting New Tools
“When data entry is no longer a chore, people are more willing to use the system. You get better data, reporting, and overall compliance.”
Job Creation Process
WrightPlan’s software is purpose-built for the crane rental industry, making it easier for RKM Crane and similar companies to transition to modern workflow management tools.
“WrightPlan allows me to do something that I’ve always done when creating jobs, which is work backward,” explained Margetts. “You get a phone call, a guy just wants to order a crane, yet you haven’t done up a quote or started a job. With the customer still on the phone, I can go into WrightPlan, schedule a new work order, assign equipment, and then do up a quote and attach it to the job after.”
Additionally, WrightPlan’s built-in tasks & activities helped RKM Crane improve tracking for their sales funnel, equipment maintenance, and employees’ skills.
Scheduling & Dispatch
With several different yards, RKM Crane wanted to increase management’s visibility into each one (availability of equipment, employees and their skills, etc.) as well as communicate scheduling changes in real-time.
Using WrightPlan’s drag & drop functionalities, Margetts and his team were able to rapidly improve their scheduling and dispatching processes.
“Customers are always changing dates and postponing, but with WrightPlan, I’m able to keep up by way of extending or dragging jobs to different dates in real-time,” said Margetts.
“I can also drag & drop pictures or files into a quote. If someone sends me drawings for items we are lifting, or if we have a lift plan, I can just drag & drop them into the job's attachments section.”
Seeing Results with WrightPlan
“With other software, I felt like I was looking over the shoulder of an accountant — it was so far above my head. But when we came across WrightPlan, we saw how easy it was to use. It’s like using an app.”
Going Digital
RKM Crane Services has been using WrightPlan for over a year, and in that time, managed to target and fix many of their pain points thanks to the system’s ease of use.
“A huge motivating factor for going with WrightPlan was its ease of use,” said Margetts. “We went through a number of presentations from different companies, and when we came across WrightPlan, we saw how easy it was to use and how much we could benefit from it.”
According to Margetts, not is his team fully on-board with WrightPlan, but other benefits RKM Crane has seen from using the system include:
quicker, easier duplication of quote and job information;
standardized processes for quote approvals, job tracking, and more;
improved visibility of business analytics and real-time access to KPIs;
and time & money saved by automating manual processes.
Ready to revolutionize your crane rental business? Contact us today for an online demo!
Webinar Highlights
