CalMac

How CalMac Empowered Their Employees and H&S Team through Document Management Innovation.

Overview

Customer

CalMac.

About

An award-winning transport company that serves 30 island destinations. They strive to provide reliable and convenient service to their diverse customers.

Sector

Transport

Org. Size

1700

Service

Technology Consulting & Delivery

Key Goals

10,000 documents now searchable

Online and offline access

Automated document control processes

“As a result of this project CalMac and our teams particularly on the vessels have the ability to have access to ‘one version of the truth’ which is available offline when they are unable to connect to shore and collaborate securely across the organisation. We have robust system in place to support the continuation of our work in the event of a disaster recovery situation. The technical documentation was one of the best handovers we have experienced and the team at Appetite were friendly, flexible, knowledgeable and supportive in dealing with some quite complex challenges”

Management system specialist

Challenges

One of the UK’s largest ferry operators faced a number of challenges with their existing Company Management System (CMS). Despite using a SharePoint site to manage critical documentation, the company struggled to make information easily accessible to all
employees in both online and offline environments. An audit deficiency on one of their vessels in 2020 prompted the need to remodel their CMS, with the aim of providing seamless data access and document management.

Managing a significant amount of information and documentation
related to vessel reliability, compliance, and safety.
Difficulty in making information easily available in a timely manner,
both online and offline.
Audit deficiency on one of their vessels, prompting the need to
remodel their CMS.
Need to give all employees easy and quick access to
company-wide processes and documentation.
Difficulty in managing and keeping track of document changes,
with documents being constantly added, revised, or removed.
Desire to integrate a sophisticated risk module to better manage
potential out-of-date documentation.
Need for an automated change request solution to facilitate the
implementation of any changes.

Solutions

In response to the challenges the transport company faced with its CMS, Appetite was engaged to provide solutions to improve searchability, accessibility, and user experience. This included restructuring SharePoint, adopting Power Apps, PowerAutomate, and Power BI for automated document change requests, and developing a risk management module using Power BI.

Restructuring SharePoint to build a more accessible site, migrating over 3,000 documents, implementing
metatags, and using OneDrive for offline access.
Adopting Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI to automate and streamline the document change
request process.
Developing a risk management module using Power BI to facilitate visualisations of document statistics,
searches through keywords, geographic and vessel locations, a 7-day report of document modifications, and
automatic notifications to staff members when a document is due or out-of-date.

Outcomes

As a result of the successful implementation of the solutions provided by Appetite, the transport company has significantly improved their CMS and document management processes. This has resulted in a more efficient and streamlined approach, providing employees with seamless access to documentation required to ensure the smooth operation of the business.

Employees can now easily and quickly search for and access information and documents in both online and offline environments, allowing them to work more efficiently.
Automation of document approval processes has significantly reduced the time required for this task, freeing up employees to focus on other important areas of the business.
The implementation of structured data entry processes has reduced the risk of human error in submitting document change requests, ensuring greater accuracy and efficiency.
The H&S team is now able to take proactive and immediate actions when documents need to be updated, ensuring that the business remains compliant and operating safely.
H&S staff can now search for and find the right documents seamlessly, making audits more accurate and efficient.

In addition to the direct benefits, the changes implemented by Appetite also produced a number of sustainability outcomes:

By optimising the CMS and digitalising the document management process, the need for paper copies of documents has significantly decreased. Reducing environmental impact and the company’s operational costs.
The streamlined and automated systems reduce the need for energy-consuming hardware such as printers and servers.
Through remote access, the company has the potential to lower its overall energy footprint by enabling flexible work options.

Who We Help?

Whatever, your situation we can help you to de-risk and accelerate your M365 adoption.  

For Owners

Small team? At capacity? Don’t know where to start? Work with us and always be in the know with data at your fingertips. Save yourselves the stress so you can digitally transform your organisation and processes. Hold on to and develop talent. Identify areas for more efficiency. Stay secure and compliant and move the business forward.

For IT

Juggling with strategy and small in-house team? With a specialist partner like us we can help simplify management, achieve compliance and guide you on best practice governance and strategy, keeping data secure whilst giving people access to the insights they need.

For Finance

Overseeing a global business? Let us help you go from data to insight to action. Free up cash flow by identifying efficiencies, removing legacy systems and removing bottlenecks. Increasing real time visibility, measuring metrics, mitigating risk and achieving better compliance and transparency.

For HR

Worrying about upskilling or reskilling your talent pipeline to meet changing technology needs and digital skills shortage? Let us help you to boost productivity, knowledge sharing and wellbeing in remote workers. Deliver a best-in-class employee experience from onboarding to offboarding. Provide better access to employee voices to guide, transform and evolve.

Sectors We Have Worked In

With experience and clients across a wide range of sectors and industries, we understand the challenges you face.

Energy/Renewables 

We have core domain experience in this area, providing solutions that have transformed the way our customers manage their businesses and use their data to extract maximum value. 

Construction 

We know how important it is to support construction companies who want to rapidly digitize their processes to support off site workers and remove manual processes, avoid delays, and drive project efficiencies. 

Professional Services 

We have been trusted by customers to streamline and secure operations and develop bespoke responsive apps within Microsoft 365 to increase productivity and deliver differentiating services.

Transport & Travel 

We understand the pressure to streamline operations, reduce costs and increase efficiency. Appetite provide M365 development and support services to improve efficiency and QHSE audit and compliance.

Pharmaceutical 

From regularly working with pharma organisations, we understand the challenges to support collaboration, productivity, and paper lite initiatives to streamline processes, increase visibility and comply with regulations. 

Public Sector  

We are on the UK Government G-Cloud framework. We can support you with process transformation, employee engagement and digital working practices with a variety of solutions.  

Healthcare 

From advisory and best practice around large digital transformation programmes to out of the box and bespoke digital solutions we can help you adopt modern working practices. 

Not for Profit 

Every penny counts.  So, we help you do more with less, from licensing to better information access, tracking data for metrics and creation of dashboards all to ensure regulatory compliance.