Construction and Engineering

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 HEB Construction, with 1,200 field workers across New Zealand, produces extensive documentation, especially for quality control. Before M-Files, files were scattered across platforms like OneDrive, SharePoint, and Outlook, leading to version issues, duplication, and difficulty locating documents, especially during litigation. 

Paper-based processes were time-consuming, error-prone, and vulnerable to weather damage on-site. M-Files centralized and streamlined document management, resolving these challenges. 

Large projects and joint ventures generate even more paperwork than small projects. At the end of the project all the documentation generated across different teams and sites must be collated. Depending on the size of the project, this can take months. 

HEB Construction’s projects often require daily documentation, such as for road-surfacing jobs involving traffic management. Before digitization, engineers had to drive to the office to collect and return physical documents, making the process time-consuming, manual, and inefficient. 

M-Files partner Manux developed a proof of concept to digitize and automate project quality plan packs, allowing engineers to directly access data on-site without needing to collect paperwork from the office. This saved engineers significant time, especially during early mornings and late afternoons. The solution eliminated unnecessary travel, saving HEB Construction $80,000 annually.

HEB later expanded M-Files solutions across the business for document management, workflows, and process streamlining. Tony Cooke noted that the success of digital transformation depends on how well teams use available tools. The solution provides a single source of truth, automating status updates, reminders, and due dates, while ensuring compliance and easy discoverability.

Photographs are crucial for compliance in construction projects, but before M-Files, images were stored across various platforms, leading to versioning issues and no central tracking. Engineers would upload photos to Google Photos, then share them on OneDrive, creating multiple versions without a single source of truth. M-Files centralizes images, automatically tagging them with project metadata, and tracks who viewed, shared, and accessed each image. Additionally, Manux enhanced this by extracting EXIF data, including GPS coordinates, allowing photos to be mapped and pinpointed in real time.