Karl Wolf GmbH & Co. KG
Germany
Digitalisation enables us to optimize internal business processes, strengthen existing customer relationships and create new ones - this is what sets us apart from our competitors.
About
Karl Wolf GmbH & Co. KG is a medium-sized construction company in Unna, known for its high quality and reliability. Our company is divided into two departments. One is the construction of buildings which ranges from classic residential construction to reconstruction, building maintenance, industrial construction, turnkey construction and project development. The second department is utility construction where our main clients are regional utility companies.
Company size: Medium (<250)
Sector: Construction of buildings; Other; Construction of residential and non residential buildings
(general contracting)
Technology: Digital business processes - Introduction of agile project management methods using
digital tools
Digital initiative
As a construction company in the utility sector, we have to deal with fixed clients (municipal utilities) but a large number of different stakeholders (e.g. contact persons for gas, electricity, water, etc.). Every day we have to coordinate on a large number of projects (small construction sites and large construction projects). Stakeholders also have a great need to exchange information with each other. Until now, there was no central platform to exchange information. Numerous phone calls, emails and personal meetings are the result.
In our search for a suitable methodology with a corresponding digital tool, we took our cue from the IT and automotive industries. Our decision fell on the methodology of agile project management with the tool Kanban Board. The Kanban Board is a visual tool that provides an overview of the current status of tasks or projects. The individual tasks or projects can be assigned attributes (start date, construction site, contact person, plans, etc.). These are then moved to a status defined by us (site memory, site ready for client assembly, assembled, completed by contractor and invoiced). We chose Microsoft Teams as the digital solution for this tool.
Relevant construction projects
Experienced benefits of digitalisation
Transparency and the single-source-of-truth are unique selling points, as all stakeholders enter their information into the Kanban Board and are seen by the others in real time.
Teams enabled us to create the Kanban Board without costly programming work and make it accessible to our clients.
Mobile Work - All project status information (site specifics, finishes, etc.) is available on mobile devices in real time. This feature adds significant value in the construction sector, as much of the work takes place off-site rather than in the office. For the most part, the only device available on the road is a smartphone, but our platform is equally compatible for mobile devices and PCs.
The software used is kept very simple and intuitive. All stakeholders were trained on the methodology and tool within a short kick-off meeting. This was not least due to the fact that our solution was very popular with all age groups. Thus, no additional external or internal training was necessary.
Tips for effective implementation
Our clients belong to the critical infrastructure, which means that the requirements for IT security and data conformity are an exclusion criterion. Accordingly, we had to find suitable software that met these criteria and did not represent an additional cost for our clients. For these reasons, we decided on Microsoft Teams and were able to achieve rapid approval from the IT department of our clients.