Digitizing quality management

How CCE consolidates its ISO 9001 certification with PlanRadar

Based in Brittany, CCE – Constructions de la Côte d’Émeraude is a construction company specialising in structural shell construction. With a workforce of 180, CCE delivers reinforced concrete, brick, and blockwork structures, including residential blocks, offices, and public facilities. This high-performance, innovative Brittany-based SME generates annual sales of €32 million. Since 2019, CCE has obtained ISO 9001 – Quality Management certification, which attests to the company’s ability to provide a service that complies with customer requirements and regulatory frameworks. To consolidate this quality approach and support the ongoing optimisation of its working methods, CCE has chosen to digitize its processes with PlanRadar.

The challenge: optimizing quality control on site

At CCE, quality control is paramount to meeting customer expectations. The company has therefore set itself 4 specific objectives: meeting deadlines, controlling costs, delivering high-quality work, and encouraging cooperation between departments. While this approach has been recognised by ISO 9001 certification from 2019, the company has identified several areas for improvement to meet its commitments.

Such high standards call for rigorous site monitoring. However, without a digital platform, the works supervisors and site managers had no effective tool with which to monitor the quality of their projects. Nicolas Penguen, Process Engineer – Works Supervisor at CCE, explains: “We had a mass of photos that were not sorted, located, or commented on. For the supporting technical teams, it was difficult to understand what the works supervisor or site manager had meant to say, and the loss of information was inevitable.

It should also be pointed out that site supervisors spend almost 75% of their time on site and 25% on administrative follow-up: the time required for reprocessing information on a computer is therefore very limited and must be done as efficiently as possible. “Previously, our quality approach was documented and archived on Excel spreadsheets. However, as site managers were rarely in the office, they didn’t complete these quality control points on a regular basis,” explains Nicolas Penguen. This method led to omissions that were potentially damaging to the quality of the works.

This difficulty in organizing and accessing information easily was particularly problematic for all the support services. Nicolas Penguen, explains, “The time wasted searching for information was significant for the teams, and our ability to retrieve the information was uncertain.

To improve these processes, CCE needed to find a mobile platform that would allow quality control point information to be entered directly from the worksite and associate photos with a precise location on the plan.

The solution: digitize site quality monitoring procedures using a digital platform

CCE’s ambition was to find a solution to meet the requirements of the ISO 9001 standard for both on-site and production activities. The chosen platform had to enable the site quality monitoring procedures to be processed electronically and brought together in a single, easy-to-use tool. It also had to enable the history of the site to be saved so that the construction methods could be retained.

After a successful initial test phase involving three users in October 2021, the company decided at the end of 2022 to extend the use of the PlanRadar platform to all its construction sites. PlanRadar automates the creation of reports, incorporating information and photos taken on site throughout the construction phase. This feature is particularly useful for verifying quality requirements. This information can be retrieved at any time by any user.

PlanRadar also allows the creation of customized forms, which are very useful for creating checklists. This functionality was fundamental for CCE, as site managers have to carry out various quality control point checks to ensure perfect compliance with the plan. CCE therefore incorporated all these self-check points into PlanRadar by creating a series of customized forms ready to be completed in the field. Nicolas Penguen points out: “With PlanRadar, we have digitized all aspects of our quality approach. The forms are much easier to fill in than our old Excel files, and what’s more, they’re very simple to create.

Directly on-site, site managers will use PlanRadar to record photos of the reinforcement before the slab is poured, checks of slab levels, checks of required slab openings, Datum level points, quality control of materials such as concrete, and all event records enabling the history of the works to be retraced and monitored.

For example, when concrete is delivered to a site, the site manager will fill in the concrete quality control form, save the corresponding delivery note, and report any problems encountered. The concrete pour area will then be located on the digital map imported into the application. In the event of a dispute, it will be very easy to identify and find the area concerned. This method enables site supervisors to discuss disputed issues easily with the works foreman, to justify their decisions and to avoid misunderstandings.

The result: simplicity and quality

For site managers, site monitoring has become much simpler, and is now carried out exclusively on the platform. Productivity has also improved, because site supervisors can fulfil all their quality obligations on-site, from their telephone. To date, 12 sites are being monitored on the platform, and it will continue to be deployed on all CCE’s future projects. Since 2022, CCE has also obtained ISO 14001 – Environmental Management System certification, so another application is on the horizon for the platform.

The company appreciates having access to key information at a glance: “Information is distributed between the offices and the site in real time. This immediate synchronisation of data is a definite advantage for the quality of construction, and avoids unnecessary delays.

Claims management has also been radically simplified since the adoption of PlanRadar. With photos located on the plan, dated and contextualised, CCE is now guaranteed not to lose any information, and has all the information it needs to defend its projects. For the after-sales service, this also represents an opportunity to manage disputes more efficiently and more quickly: unlike their previous experience, accessing the history of a worksite has become simple, and it is no longer necessary to ask the works supervisors to find evidence that is crucial to resolving a dispute: “PlanRadar is a mine of information! Today, we have absolutely all the information we need on the application: from a photo of the reinforcement before the slab is poured, to the concrete delivery note, with associated comments. One of the great strengths of the platform is that we can locate quality control points directly on the plan and associate photos with them. Nicolas Penguen.

The quality of our services has also been enhanced by the creation of reports that are appreciated for their professional presentation. Previously, teams were unable to produce this type of deliverable because of time constraints. Now, at the end of a project, site supervisors can generate several types of report, such as on concrete delivery issues or the Datum level plates installed. These reports are invaluable for analysing possible areas for improvement on future sites, and for keeping a record of the construction history.

After several months of use, Nicolas Penguen has a very positive assessment of the application: “The CCE teams and I appreciate the ease of use and intuitiveness of the PlanRadar interface. It allows us to save precious time on worksites, without the need for time-consuming training in office automation or a strong appetite for IT tools to adopt it”.