4EF streamlines workflow, improves efficiency by 50%

4EF provides technology consulting services to help manufacturers optimize operations and run more efficiently. Based in the Netherlands, the firm creates custom software to integrate enterprise resource planning (ERP), business intelligence, and cloud-based hosting solutions to ensure customers get the most out of their technology investments.

Employees wear multiple hats: computer programmer, project manager, marketer —they do it all. 

To understand a customer’s manufacturing operations, 4EF employees spend hours on the factory floor. Before they can create a custom solution, they must first identify the disconnects between a customer’s strategic goals and its actual operations.

“Our firm fills in the gaps between what our customers want to have and what they have,” says Maaik Meijerink, Project Portfolio Manager and Technical Consultant at 4EF.

Filling those gaps takes time and involves lots of tasks.

But the firm faced a significant gap of its own. 4EF’s current work management tools made it difficult to manage projects effectively, let alone grow the business.

Staff lacked the ability to track each aspect of their work accurately—or share that information with clients. And they couldn’t access insights about actual versus planned hours from previous work to scope new projects accurately.  

Team members used Microsoft Excel for project planning and time tracking, but they needed a faster, more collaborative way to work. They wanted a clear view of every project—to track and see billable versus non-billable hours spent on individual tasks.  

Without real-time visibility into project status, team members risked making uninformed decisions on a daily basis. These actions, in turn, could negatively impact project timelines and cause budget missteps, impacting relationships with current clients and reducing future work.

To gain control over their business, these efficiency experts needed a flexible solution to support their daily operations and align with their strategic goals.  

Improving Efficiency While Tracking Many Moving Parts

With most team members working in the field, and each project involving hundreds of tasks, 4EF needed a robust work execution solution to track its project workflows and resources across the firm.

When 4EF discovered Smartsheet, the firm recognized that it could maximize the time and talents of its workforce by using the platform’s work management and automation solutions. Team members easily deployed Smartsheet—and streamlined their whole approach to project reporting and resource planning.

For example, now the firm can compare planned hours with actual hours at any point for any project. With this window into how every task is progressing, project managers—and customers—can make incremental adjustments and more informed decisions.

“Within one month, we’d gained more insight than we had in all the years before. We are more efficient in terms of costs, strategic decisions, and internal and external communication. In fact, we’ve improved our overall efficiency by 50 percent,” says Meijerink.

Greater Transparency and Communication with Customers

4EF considers its ability to share up-to-date, organized, and comprehensive information with customers the greatest benefit of using Smartsheet. “Our customers now have easy access to data such as how many hours are going into the different parts of a project,” says Meijerink.

Smartsheet’s scalable solution integrates easily with 4EF’s existing tools, including Microsoft Power BI, helping them get the most out of their technology investments. And employees can now work more efficiently, saving time and money. 

“Our team makes notes in Smartsheet, assigns them, and shares the sheets. With everything tracked, gathered, and maintained where it’s supposed to be, anyone with access can immediately take actions on it. And we only have to enter the information once. Besides this efficiency-improvement, project management has become a huge part of our product portfolio and gives us an estimated extra revenue of €60,000 a year.”

The new approach is having a ripple effect on the firm’s business. It has helped boost 4EF team member efficiency to such a degree that individuals can focus on value-add activities to help grow the business.