Custom app allows two companies to team up on complex projects

Hunt Electric Corporation of Minnesota and Miller Electric Company of Omaha are industry leaders in providing innovative, high-quality, and cost-effective electrical design build solutions. Their partnership was ideal for the construction of a much anticipated one million square foot data center project in Springfield, Nebraska. From its inception, it was understood that this partnership required a strategy for efficiency, a focus on quality, and a precise reporting process. Their strategy included lean prefabrication techniques, detailed computer aided design, and building information modeling. This team’s ability to blend processes, coupled with their combined experience, allowed them to manufacture the precision electrical assemblies required for the project.

The Problem

The challenge for Hunt and Miller was the scalability of their blended processes. The creation of a structure this large involved scaling of processes that worked great in smaller projects, but presented hurdles for a project of this size. That was the case when it came to the real-time tracking and reporting of the installation of each electrical assembly. Hunt and Miller were using a paper-based process requiring their electricians to fill out daily production reports that were then keyed into a Microsoft Access database. The combination of this pen and paper process along with double-entry of data in different locations was not just inefficient and burdensome. It was ultimately hindering the progress of the team. Hunt and Miller needed a solution that was modern, efficient, easy-to-use, cloud-based, and mobile enabled.

The Solution

As Hunt and Miller found themselves in uncharted territory, it was clear that a professional technological solution was needed, and quickly. With the use of our JumpStart framework, Volano Solutions was able to craft a tailor-fit mobile application. Our proprietary model allowed us to build the solution quickly and at a lower cost than traditional custom software. The app implements a very simple and intuitive tile-based menu. Electricians are now able to quickly document the work they complete as each assembly progresses. In a data center this size, cellular reception gets poor in several areas. So the offline database automatically syncs to the cloud on an as-needed basis. No more trips from the data center to the trailer, no more paper, no more lag times in reporting. Based on key data points that were built into the reporting suite, we know that this real-time data-capture allows the executive team to confidently report on the progress of their massive undertaking. They also have the necessary ‘line-of-sight’ needed to manage the field teams’ efforts.

The Outcome

Hunt-Miller went on to work on multiple phases of the data center project. Hunt Electric leverages the system to win more large projects by impressing Fortune 100 prospects with its capabilities. A true competitive advantage. Volano is proud to team up with two great companies like Hunt and Miller to help with the success of a project of a lifetime.