Name: McQuade Property Consultancy
Based: London
Website: mcquadeproperty.com
In order to become more efficient, we have developed a bespoke system that prepares our pro-forma documents. We advise homeowners on getting party wall agreements in place. Part of this process is a notice issued to neighbours describing the work that will be undertaken and the details of the parties involved.
Initially these notice pro-formas were prepared as Word documents with the project-specific information entered in multiple areas across the document. This approach can be time consuming, and, as the same information is repeated in a number of different places, there are many opportunities to make mistakes.
Our first improvement was to use mail-merge functionality to create these documents. This allowed us to streamline our process and understand our business requirements in detail.
We then commissioned the development of a web-based tool with a database in the back end to create the required forms. There are multiple benefits to this new approach. These include a reduction in time taken to prepare the document allowing us to spend time on more value-add services for our clients, single-entry of all information and a reduction in errors. Previously, errors in the document would mean starting the process again if not spotted in time; this can have a serious knock-on effect on building projects where time is money.
Emma Steenson is director of McQuade Property Consultancy
