Find out how Socotec has joined forces with Ermeo to optimise its CEE control and CEE audit operations (Energy Savings Certificates).
The replay of our dedicated webinar is available right here, and find the summary of the conversation right below.
1. Presentation of Socotec
Socotec is a leader in the construction and real estate sector, including ICT (Testing Inspection and Certification).
The company is organised around 5 departments:
- Construction and Real Estate (building control and SPS coordination, CEE, consulting)
- Infrastructure
- Equipment and Industry (periodic inspection of technical and industrial equipment)
- Environment and Safety
- Certification and training
More than 9,000 employees work with Socotec, which has a turnover of €900 million in 23 countries, with 150 locations in France.
2. Socotec's challenges
Digital topics at the IT level of the Socotec group
The real estate sector is in the process of catching up with its historical delay in terms of digitalization. To achieve this, Socotec is organising its efforts around 5 key areas:
- the redesign of production tools to better manage data models (BIM and IFC standards),
- the implementation of a scalable IT architecture,
- the creation of an ecosystem of API partners to complement Socotec's tools, including Ermeo,
- data interoperability, through the deployment of Building Operating Systems (BOS) and Infrastructure Operating Systems (IOS),
- data exploitation and de-silencing, based on two main areas: a data lake to visualise the data with dataviz solutions, and datascience, with predictive models and computer vision, particularly for risk analysis.
How Ermeo helps address Socotec's digital challenges
One of the main challenges facing Socotec is the decentralised nature of its business. The group is faced with productivity and structured use of data, which is not possible with the in-house tools developed by the company.
With Ermeo, Socotec wants to :
- homogenise data, centralise it, and update it on all business tools simultaneously,
- improving the traceability of interventions and reportsThis is essential to meet COFRAC obligations and those linked to accreditations and certifications,
- increase productivity by saving time on reporting (internal productivity and responsiveness to customers).
The specific issues of CEE control and CEE audit addressed by Ermeo :
- structuring and standardising operational processes between the different sites,
- exploit the data collected in order to retransmit them to the end client,
- ensure compliance of all audits and controls,
- gain productivity throughout the process.
3. Socotec's objectives for its EEC control with Ermeo
- Digitalising high impact use cases,
- Collect data automatically,
- Automate reporting,
- Harmonise changes related to regulatory developments.
4. The solutions implemented with Ermeo for the CEE control and the CEE audit of Socotec
Using the Ermeo API
- Networking and interfacing of Ermeo with business tools Ermeo: Socotec uses an ERP linked to internal software (Osmose) which centralises and dispatches interventions internally, and consolidates data (for example, progress rates and summaries). This internal software is itself connected to Ermeo. Interventions are thus sent to Ermeo from Osmose, with all the data retrieved from the ERP: the intervention forms are thus pre-filled with all the necessary information.
- The elimination of administrative tasks for the operators linked to the interventions The deliverables are automatically generated and sent back to Osmose. This makes it possible to consolidate the state of progress for the project manager, who interfaces with the client.
- Improved customer relations: the data retrieved from the forms is therefore pushed into Osmose and then returned to the ERP. This also facilitates invoicing issues and the follow-up of operations for the customer.
"Only two and a half months of development were needed to interface and digitalise the entire CEE Socotec agency process with Ermeo, which represents a very significant ROI. It also allows us to open new agencies more quickly", says Mr. B., Pascal Loisel, Head of IT BU Construction and Real Estate & Master Data Manager Socotec.
Management of interventions with the Ermeo mobile application
- Optimising the management of intervention forms With Ermeo, the operator can easily find the form that corresponds to the intervention that has been assigned to him. He can also find the history of his interventions, and in the event of an unplanned intervention, he can go and find the corresponding form in the application. This contributes to a considerable improvement in Socotec's responsiveness to the unexpected.
- The addition of methodological aids: operators work on many sites, each with their own specificities and equipment. To help operators, Ermeo can integrate explanations and indications into its forms, which can be consulted at will.
- More relevant and instantaneous intervention reports With Ermeo, operators can take photos during their work and annotate them, collect the signatures needed to validate the work, or capture all the alphanumeric data. The reports are generated automatically in the desired formats according to a fully customisable framework, and retrieved instantaneously from Socotec's business tools. The elimination of double data entry thanks to the automatic generation of reports results in real time savings for operators and eliminates any risk of transcription errors (and data loss).
5. The results: optimised management of EEC controls thanks to Ermeo
"Thanks to Ermeo, operators can concentrate solely on the technical act, which provides great added value. Data collection is faster and more efficient, thanks in particular to the automatic filling in of administrative data (client, company, subcontractor, invoice number, etc.), and the possibility of taking photos and annotating them." Laurent Gouverne, CEE Market Development Director Socotec
With the Ermeo solution, Socotec achieved the following results:
- productivity gain time to completetime reduced by 33%, time to complete the workreduced by 33%, internal internal and customer reporting time reduced by 90%, and,
- clarity of procedures : 90% of Socotec operators believe that the Ermeo Ermeo forms are easy to complete,
- practicality and ergonomics of the application : 95% of Socotec operators consider the Ermeo solution to be Ermeo is easy to use.
More generally, 90% of Ermeo users at Socotec see advantages in using the application rather than a paper document to carry out interventions.
In addition to the actions carried out for the management of the CEE control, and thanks to the dedicated support received by Socotec, Ermeo benefits from a horizontal diffusion of its solution within the group on the following perimeters
- Real estate qualification,
- 3CEp,
- COVID 19,
- Strength diagnosis,
- Environmental quality,
- Solidity notice,
- Acoustics,
- Accessibility for people with reduced mobility.
