A-Lert Construction Services

About A-Lert Construction Services

For over three decades, A-Lert Construction Services has been a prominent name in nationwide heavy industrial construction, plant maintenance, and repair. Their expertise extends across various processing industries, including grain, oilseed, food, meat, cement, chemical, wood products, biomass, energy, biofuels, and more.

Jumping Right Into Digital

Following his tenure at Turner Construction, Richard Mitchell, Director of Quality for A-Lert Construction Services, implemented GoFormz into their daily operations. "After witnessing its potential at Turner, I brought GoFormz here because it's a good system, and I recognized its potential two to three years ago while inspecting on the pipeline." Mitchell introduced GoFormz to A-Lert Construction Services to streamline their quality control documentation procedures. “Everything in this world is paperwork heavy. You have to document everything and track the traceability of everything you do, and then it needs to be organized and submitted to the client for final approval,” explained Mitchell. “So I just replicated our paper process in GoFormz with some other backend software to help facilitate it. In essence, GoFormz is my one and only user interface.”

Overview of Their Process

A-Lert Construction Services has a simple yet effective setup process for job sites. “I have a document controller who manages about five different facilities. I have three total for the whole company nationwide and they manage their regions,” Mitchell explained. “Typically, we would receive a job from a project manager. We’d look it over, upload all the baseline databases, and get everything set in stone. Each QC assigned to a job site, approves the upload. Once approved, the forms are live and operational for everybody.”

One Form Fits All

A-Lert Construction Services leverages Dynamic Field Properties and Conditional Logic within its digital forms to guide data entry and simplify the documentation experience, by hiding specific pages, tables, and fields. “Almost all of our forms are dynamic which means I have one form and it doesn’t matter who’s using it. It depends on the job selected,” explained Mitchell. “The form pulls in information and marries multiple databases dynamically depending on the user's input.”

Leveraging Database fields and DataSources, the A-Lert Construction team can streamline the form completion process by automatically populating specific form data pulled from their database. “The forms can also pull in data and complete calculations directly on the form. It’s all tailored to each person completing the form. So depending on that user input code requirement, it’ll send you down a different path that mimics the code.” By incorporating Automatic Calculations, A-Lert Construction ensures a smooth, automated experience during their data collection process. Together, these dynamic features significantly reduce the potential for human error, streamline form completion, and simplify data collection. “All you need is your PDF document and the end result or spreadsheet that you want on the backside of those items. From there, any system can be mapped to perform the same function. It doesn’t matter what code, what process, what industry. It’s all seamless with GoFormz.”

Upon reaching the end of the form, the user must complete a required approval process. “The awesome thing about our process is that the form requires the user to accept or modify the end result. It pulls all the data and it gives you what it should be, or what the system thinks it should be,” explained Mitchell. “The form and data are automatically uploaded into a digital package on SharePoint and organized properly so everything is ready for depository steps when the job is complete.”

This documentation process saves A-Lert Construction Services significant time. “A job that would normally require a full team now only requires a fraction of a person’s time, to manage the same amount of data,” explained Mitchell. “There is no error in the documentation of that data as well. Once it’s set in motion and the data is true up, the data is never conflicted from that point forward.”

Fully Integrated

A-Lert Construction Services has established GoFormz as its single source of truth. “I have spreadsheets in SharePoint and then use Power BI dashboards that I’ve built to host all the data that is being fed into GoFormz. Now, nobody inputs anything into Excel documents. It’s all entered within GoFormz,” explained Mitchell. They utilize a wide range of integrations to not only streamline the flow of data but also to minimize data entry demands. “I use Power Automate, Power BI, OneDrive, and SQL, so then GoFormz is my one and only user interface.”

Mitchell illustrated this data transfer process using weld logs as an example. “There’s a loading page where everything comes in from SQL that’s being fed into GoFormz. Then, there are two or three pages that have tons of formulas on there to dissect and drill down the data in the granular structure to show different, critical parameters,” explained Mitchell. “So, many internal mathematical calculations are happening behind the scenes on the sheet alone.” Having GoFormz act as their single point of entry, simplifies and ensures data integrity – a difficult task when relying solely on Excel. “Having GoFormz feed this into SQL and ensure the data is an accurate, true, and exact match of what it’s supposed to be is huge. All of my formulas are error-free, and anybody that understands Excel knows that if you sneeze on it while you’re opening up that file will mess it up.”

GoFormz has played a major role in simplifying Excel spreadsheet data entry. “GoFormz has been pivotable in terms of being able to insert data into my cell sheets without any data character errors, which means, the ability of the form to enforce all uppercase, all lowercase, or only numbers, has helped me clean up my data stream from GoFormz into Excel so nothing breaks. That in itself is huge.”

Advancing in GoFormz

“Anyone that is messing around with the GoFormz product and is worried about the cost of professional services, I am here to tell you that you need to do it because there’s a lot of valuable insights there,” Mitchell explained. “The nucleus of people you have at your disposal at GoFormz are topnotch. They can get you out of a jam quickly.”

Mitchell continued to express his gratitude for the customer support and professional services team at GoFormz. “They are very receptive and they try to go out of their way more often than normal to help you succeed.”

Top Benefit: Data Accuracy

The top benefit A-Lert Construction Services has achieved with GoFormz has been data accuracy. “I don’t have to worry about the flow of data. All I have to do is input a job or package number, and all the other metadata that is tied to that specific number gets attached to the form,” explained Mitchell. “You have a few sets of numbers that you have to know and then the rest flows with you.”

In turn, this has created a less stressful environment for crews responsible for completing documentation. “The team is not nearly as stressed. A QC would sit there and run through their day, do their job, and then come back at the end of the day to do their paperwork,” explained Mitchell. “Anybody in the industry knows that you automatically add one to two extra hours to a QC’s day to complete their paperwork. Now all they have to do is sit down with their iPad and click done. It’s all uploaded in real time!”

What’s Next for A-Lert Construction Services

A-Lert Construction Services has more digital form processes to establish. “The next step for me is to finish with the package logs and follow the similar structure of the ASME logs,” explained Mitchell. “Now that I have the big processes established and running well, it’s all about rinsing and repeating the process.”