Davies Crane Hire

Bespoke Management System for Wales' leading Crane Hire company

The Client

Davies Crane Hire Ltd is one of the biggest independent crane hire companies in Wales. With over 40 years of experience, they are a well-known name in their industry.

We have worked with Davies Crane Hire for a number of years, including building and designing their current website.

The Challenge

Duncan (General Manager at Davies Crane Hire) realised that their current pen and paper management system was outdated. To make their internal processes easier to manage, they approached us to design and build a digital one.

The custom solution would also need to have specific access areas for their customers and suppliers to access information.

The Solution

We designed and built a bespoke management system that was cohesive with their brand and accessible via web browsers. It acts as a central point of information internally.

Following Duncan’s approval of our detailed specifications, we provided design mockups of what it would look like. We made sure to encapsulate their brand within our designs. The UX designs focused on ensuring clear navigation for management, staff, suppliers, and customers.

The management system needed to have 3 distinct user types, including administrators, depot managers, and staff. Each user type needs its own set of permissions and a custom access level.

Admin users could also push out security messages and information to all staff. To give full traceability, staff are then asked to confirm that they’ve read it. Other useful areas include staff timesheet submission and holiday requests to make it easier for both staff and depot managers.

The specific access areas within the portal would also allow Davies Crane to send a unique URL to suppliers so that they could return the necessary information electronically.

The result

As we listened to Duncan’s needs prior to and throughout the project, it meant that the final product fully met his requirements.

Our bespoke solution made it easier for administrators to communicate with all staff quickly. Thanks to the feature where staff could mark that they’d read it, it also created full visibility and traceability. This meant that their staff saved valuable time and were able to access better information regarding the uptake of communication.

The system will save time for both depot managers and staff. Making submission of timesheets and holidays easier to do and manage. Not only were depot managers able to keep track of holiday requests from a centralised point, but individual staff members benefited from the same visibility.

The supplier and customer areas provide an online regulatory liaison environment for both Davies Crane Hire and external third parties. By eliminating unnecessary paperwork or chasing up, the internal management system improved efficiency and productivity overall.

"There is nothing more exciting than handing over a completed project to a client. Every stage, from initial conception through to getting it signed off and "live".

I feel very privileged to have been the person who managed Duncan's project and look forward to growing our business relationship with Davies Crane Hire by continuing to support future functionality for the system."

Christine Weetman
Copper Bay Digital