Seihou Kensetsu Co., Ltd. is building “drawers” for information sharing

Challenge: inconsistent documentation costs time and money

Seihou Kensetsu Co., Ltd. has a long track record of construction work in the Ise City of Mie Prefecture, including many public works projects. The company is developing its business in the two pillars of civil engineering and construction. They’re particularly adept in joint venture projects in the civil engineering field, with about ten projects in operation at any given time.

Facilitating the exchange of documents with construction clients and sub-contractors is essential for ensuring that on-site processes proceed smoothly. However, Seihou Kensetsu faced certain challenges related to this in the past. At civil engineering and construction sites, a document called a “construction meeting book” is prepared. It comprehensively describes requests from the client, the work to be done, and any changes that need to be made. In order for the work to proceed, every company and contractor involved checks the book, so if it’s incomplete, the work will be delayed for confirmation and correction, which affects the overall construction period.

“The inconsistency in the completeness of construction meeting books between experienced and junior employees was a source of concern for us. Since millions or tens of millions of yen will be spent based on this document, it is absolutely essential to ensure that there are no missing or incomplete details. In order to prevent delays caused by rework, it was necessary for us to standardize documentation at a high level,” explains Mr. Masaaki Nishiyama.

At the time, each person in charge of the construction meeting books was creating and storing them on their own computer, and this was a factor that made the books too “personalized.” What they need was a way to share past documents company-wide so new employees could learn how to create them and use the right examples. With this in mind, the company began to consider a system.

Solution: sharing collective knowledge on one platform

“The on-site department takes the initiative in considering and selecting which IT solutions to utilize. We, the General Affairs Department, are responsible for proposing effective solutions and supporting their implementation,” says Mr. Kazuyuki Nishiguchi. The company used this approach in its investigation.

When determining the solution, the company envisioned “drawers.” If past construction meeting books are kept in a drawer, anyone can freely pull them out to check the correct format whenever they want to look at them. They thought they could turn the company’s existing know-how into a shared company asset.

“Also, when junior employees are preparing documents, they may feel uncomfortable asking their busy seniors for clarification. We thought that drawers would eliminate such concerns,” says Mr. Nishiyama.

It was then that he learned about Dropbox from an IT partner. Mr. Nishiyama knew Dropbox could work for them as soon as this partner described it to him.

“At first, we hadn’t thought about using cloud storage, but we felt that the cloud, which can be accessed from anywhere, was a good fit for our business, since most of our employees are out at job sites. It’s convenient to be able to view documents on your smartphone while on the road and upload documents created at the site office,” explains Mr. Nishiyama.

Another advantage of the cloud is that you can also make your business paperless. For example, in the past, the company’s site supervisors printed out drawings and brought them to the job site. Now, if all necessary files are stored in a Dropbox folder and checked on tablets and smartphones instead, the amount of printed materials can be greatly reduced. The company felt that this would also reduce the burden on employees.

“The solution was an immediate decision, but implementation on-site took some time. This is because we thought it would be too much of a burden on our employees if we suddenly switched to a new system,” says Mr. Nishiguchi.

After distributing accounts to all employees, the General Affairs Department provided support so that each employee could become familiar with Dropbox at their own pace, whether they wanted to use it fully or only partially in their work.

Results: time saved in document preparation and file sharing

Seihou Kensetsu has created folders in Dropbox for each site, where employees can store files such as drawings and construction meeting books. The company doesn’t set strict access privileges. Instead, employees are allowed to check files at other job sites to increase the effectiveness of these “drawers.” Many of the public works projects that the company handles are contracted by municipalities and government agencies. That means there are strict rules in place for any submitted documents. Although the creation of a construction meeting book requires a high level of skill, the number of inquiries and revisions related to construction meeting books has been decreasing since the company started using Dropbox.

“The result is that everyone, from veteran employees to the most junior, can now check the correct state of documents and prepare a construction meeting book. It is also easier to ask someone else in the company to make corrections when the person in charge is not immediately available,” says Mr. Nishiguchi.

The work related to the preparation and revision of materials and documents has already been reduced to about 10 hours per month. The company is also moving toward being paperless. As Dropbox has become more widely used within the company, the number of cases where drawings and construction meeting books are printed out and carried around has been reduced. So work efficiency has also improved since the latest files can always be checked on a tablet.

“A construction meeting book is a Word file with 20 to 30 pages, and in some cases, more than 200 meetings are held at a single job site. Drawing data and images are also taken on site, so the hard disk capacity of our computers sometimes became overstretched and sluggish, especially in the latter half of the construction period. Adopting Dropbox has also resolved that problem,” adds Mr. Nishiyama. 

File sharing with people outside the company has also become easier. This is because you can create an external shared folder on Dropbox and have people access it. For example, in the past, communication with subcontractors was done by sending email attachments and requesting confirmation. Now, folders are used to make things easier and to ensure that the latest data can always be checked. Also, to receive a file that someone has created, it just needs to be uploaded to a folder. 

From its use as a drawer full of know-how and knowledge, to its use as a more versatile file sharing platform: Dropbox will continue to support the company’s operations.