Toon and Martijn explain how the new way of working makes work more efficient for Fiberklaar “We are no longer in silos”

The new way of working: how does it help our teams, organisation and customers go forward? 5 questions to Fiberklaar Operations Manager Toon Dielen and Team Leader Martijn Dreesen

“Thanks to the new way of working, we are no longer in silos”   

Toon: “My role, as Operations Manager, is to manage the operational component of the Fiberklaar Business Unit. I oversee all activities that follow the design of a fibre optic network, such as applying for permits, making arrangements with residents, managing construction teams and the communication unit, etc. I am Martijn’s N+1.”

Martijn: “My team is mainly concerned with blowing cables (for Fiberklaar and soon for Wyre), splicing cables in the PoPs, delivering home connections... We are constantly trying to improve these processes.”

Toon: “From now on, our process is fully regulated from start to fnish. We document everything that needs to be done after a design is created, every task we need to perform. We carefully monitor all this data in our SiteTracker 2.0 monitoring system. If we observe improvements for one customer such as Fiberklaar, we communicate them to other teams and departments during our CVC 1 meeting, so that they can also use them in their process. This enables us to learn from each other and keep improving our efficiency for our different customers.”

Martijn: “Here’s a concrete example of such an improvement: the digital bill of quantities. As soon as we have finished constructing an area, the site coordinator carefully measures everything: how many metres we have excavated, which pipes are in place, and so on. He then indicates on a tablet which works have been carried out. The data flows immediately to the system, the PO (Purchase Order) is automatically generated. This used to be done with Excel or on paper, but now we avoid a lot of manual work and human errors. Thanks to our new focus on standardisation, such a digital bill of quantities will be quickly implemented throughout the entire organisation.”

Toon: “Apart from the consultation within teams, there is now also consultation across all departments: the team leaders meet three times a month. How did we perform? What worked and what didn’t? How do we reach our goals? We go through our action points together and gain far more insight into what is happening in other departments.”

Martijn: “The performance meetings help us all to work better together. Here’s an example of what already emerged from such a meeting: we will use Power BI, a data visualisation platform, to monitor projects. This gives us an even better overview of the construction of a network, from the installation of the PoPs to the connection at people’s homes.”

Martijn: “New colleagues have to learn a lot. Only by documenting can we share all the knowledge produced by the organisation in an efficient manner.”

Toon: “Internal mobility is also becoming easier. In the past, you could not simply switch from one customer or business unit to another, when a project had ended for example. Now, we can offer people other opportunities more easily and facilitate their transition. You don’t want colleagues to switch to another employer because we don’t offer them opportunities after they have completed a project.”

From work instructions to one-pagers: what other improvements are we getting from the new way of working?

You will find out in the next newsletters, and in our limited newsletter.