Paperless Operations Part 4 – Measuring Success (VIDEO)

At the end of a paperless trial or during a production rollout, the executive team will ask for (or demand!) evidence that the solution meets the goals set out at the beginning of the project.

This question will be difficult to answer if the project team hasn’t established a ‘before’ baseline and built-in key performance indicators in the data generated by the digital operations solution.

There is a proven way to avoid this difficult and potentially career-damaging moment.

First, work with the leadership team to set clear and measurable goals.  For example, “Cut equipment turnaround time (as viewed in the rental management system) by at least 25%” is a clear and measurable goal.

Next, try and benchmark the current performance.  In the case of turnaround time, sample a reasonable number of “equipment returns to available” cycles and measure the average time.  Where possible, try and use existing data that is easily available in the rental management system.

Then make sure that your new digital operations system automatically generates data to support the measurement of the goal.  For turnaround time, this would be the date and time the equipment was receipted into the depot to the date and time the Rental Management system was updated with information that the equipment is now available.

Finally, bring both data sets together in an easy-to-understand report that clearly demonstrates the current performance of the paperless solutions.

Measuring Success – A Case Study

This is the approach that the Ramirent Norway team adopted when implementing PHALANX.  The result was a clear demonstration of the following tangible benefits to their leadership team:

• Equipment turnaround time cut by 50%
• 40% decrease in credit notes relating to incorrect return dates
• 45% increase in billable services
• 32% reduction in service time recording

There were unexpected and less tangible benefits that the team noticed.  For example, an improvement in the damage handling workflow (with photographic evidence automatically captured and shared with customers) and a single view of all equipment interactions.

Benchmarking the ‘before’ process and comparing it against automatically generated indicators from your new digital operations solution will prove that your solution is on track to meet or exceed your business goals.