Solution

To date, CSG has assisted Kubota with the development of five new applications. One of those applications is the Chain of Responsibility app, which has been designed to help the company’s logistics department to digitally track the transit, loading and unloading of products, and to ensure compliance is inducted throughout the product delivery journey up until it reaches the end-customer. This includes ensuring the ability to track the expected arrival of a truck, making sure the driver is fit-for-purpose and has completed all the necessary induction training, the load gets tied down properly, and that the chain of the responsibility can be efficiently handed over to the next point of transit contact, such as the next truck driver.

Results

Moving the chain of responsibility into the digital age.

Prior to introducing the Chain of Responsibility app, Kubota’s logistics department relied on a paper-based solution, which Lodder said was nearly impossible to track whether appropriate procedures were being followed.

“Now it is something we can audit. We can preload deliveries, we can check whether a process is being followed correctly, and we can provide action or reports at the end of that process as required by the departmental managers,” he said.

Reducing risk and improving overall compliance.

Kubota has lifted its overall compliance and risk management, as well as the quality of its auditable records, such as being able to provide a reporting framework back to authorities, including the company’s internal legal team.

“By developing this application and providing a digital interface for data entry, we not only improve the go-live time and the ability to capture data in real-time, but we also reduce the reliance on a paper-based solution, which was largely unable to be audited or managed easily,” Lodder said.

Alleviating the IT team from unnecessary overhead.

Having CSG as its managed service provider has also meant that Kubota’s IT team can focus on other priorities and enable CSG to handle the day-to-day overhead of managing its new applications.

“Of course there are problems and inevitably problems can occur – they’re either user-related or systems-related –  and the Cloud Solutions team are available to help us through any of those problems,” said Lodder.

A smooth sailing process from start to finish.

Like introducing any new system, especially when it’s shifting from a paper-based to a digital process, user adoption is a common challenge and one that Kubota faced. However, working with CSG on the onboarding process and during the testing phases of the new system was done in a progressive and considered way, Lodder said.

“The training has been fantastic, and the user acceptance testing has meant that we’ve got valuable feedback from our teams. Eventually because we’re moving into a tablet-based interaction and data entry for the end user, it’s a very familiar interface,” he added.

“The adoption has been fantastic, and despite the fact that possibly in the early days, the first or second application took a little bit of time to get moving. Now, we’re finding that user adoption has hugely improved because that familiarisation is already there.”

Next in the pipeline for Kubota is extending its work with CSG on potentially 20 or 30 more applications, shared Lodder.

“The initial phase has been largely around building the workflows and the design of those applications to make sure that we keep a consistent feel and that the end-user can adopt new apps as they come on – Cloud Solutions Group was fantastic at setting that standard. We’re going to continue to use that throughout the projects that we foresee over the next two or three years.”

Find out more about how Cloud Solutions Group can help you to automate your business processes and enquire about a demonstration for your organisation here.