Q ENERGY Gains Full Visibility Across 295.60 MW Solar Portfolio of 539,800 Panels
Helping Q ENERGY gain 100% transparency across their projects
Making breakthroughs in sustainable, green energy, Q ENERGY partnered with Sablono across their portfolio of projects to exchange paperwork and manual processes for an automated system that helped them to better visualise progress and quality data.
Project Portfolio
With smartly positioned sun-chasing trackers, Q ENERGY’s projects are maximising energy production and working to help bring about both environmental and economic change. Despite this, the company saw an opportunity within their own processes to create better ways of working.
Q ENERGY is currently using Sablono for seven active construction projects across Europe. This portfolio comprises over 539,990 solar panel modules with a total output of 296.60 MegaWatts (MW).
Muhammet ZeyrekThe photovoltaic industry realised that they need to become digital as a standard. Q ENERGY was not the first to embark on the digital journey, but we are certainly the pioneers in executing it on this level of detail.”
Construction Manager, Q Energy
Q ENERGY Europe GmbH is Europe’s green provider of renewable energy project solutions for all future-ready and eco-conscious clients – a trustworthy partner for communities and land owners, project developers and construction professionals, investors and off-takers.
The Challenge
Q ENERGY anticipated that clients would start demanding more and more detailed project documentation. They wanted to stay ahead of this, but their existing processes prevented this, which posed a significant risk.
Additionally, the use of manual Excel trackers led to high overhead costs and time being wasted on non-value-added tasks. Meanwhile, traditional pen and paper quality checks raised management costs and introduced warranty risks.
Siloed projects, fragmented supply chain communication, and analogue reporting further added to Q ENERGY’s challenges, making it difficult to understand project status and increasing the risk of errors and delays.
Q ENERGY was on a mission to:
Increase the visibility of progress and quality, not only with the site office but also with the head office in Berlin.
Be able to update progress from the site in real-time.
Digitise all workflows and replace Excel and email communication.
Create a full-audit trail of everything that was happening on site.
Improve collaboration – contractors needed to be able to upload progress and documentation and Q ENERGY needed to be able to confirm work from contractors.
Have a central system to store quality documents
Have a digital system to collaborate with O&Ms upon completion of the construction phase.
The Solution
Q ENERGY needed a transformative solution to improve data transparency across their projects. Here’s how Sablono helped:
Real-time, accurate progress tracking
Sablono provided Q ENERGY´s teams visual tracking of complex elements which supercharged overall project clarity.
On top of this, real-time, automated tracking allows the company to monitor and streamline progress continuously. Q ENERGY can track their projects down to the most granular detail and filter by area, status, deliverable and team to understand the true status and easily communicate this with the wider team.
A centralised, digital platform
Sablono centralised all of Q ENERGY’s progress and quality information. The user-friendly mobile app also replaced manual paperwork and email which helped facilitate rapid adoption throughout the supply chain.
Centralised progress reports in both visual and tabular formats, along with daily logs, enhanced transparency and communication, while centralised project control dashboards, which are automatically refreshed via Rest API, allowed for the discovery of project trends in real-time.
Semi-automated quality management system
Q ENERGY used Sablono’s process templates to predefine and standardise their quality workflows for greater repeatability. Additionally, the ability to attach digital QA checklists, notes and photos right in the Sablono app helped ensure all quality data was recorded and completed to the right standard before sign-off.
All the data collected from the very beginning of each project was stored to generate a fully accountable digital audit trail of everything that happened onsite, which management could easily download and share with stakeholders.
Muhammet Zeyrek"If I had stuck with Excel alone, managing projects of this size, let alone simultaneously, would have been nearly impossible. Sablono offers an exceptionally high level of control, allowing me to monitor every aspect. For instance, I can instantly check the status of each individual trench in my project."
Construction Manager, Q Energy
Claudio Schlageter“Our workflows of quality control and progress monitoring have been hugely enhanced by Sablono’s capabilities. The platform provided Q ENERGY not only with operation efficiency, but also with an essential audit trail to mitigate against future claims and it also made real-time quality documentation and progress monitoring our standard."
Team Leader, Project Management, Q Energy
The Results
Sablono’s real-time progress insights gave Q ENERGY a deeper and more accurate understanding of their project which helped them to complete tasks faster with fewer errors.
Instant access to progress and quality data meant that the company were able to increase the speed of decision-making and use insights to optimise going forward.
Streamlining paperwork and manual processes also gave Q ENERGY back precious time that they could allocate to more value-adding tasks.
40% reduction in time spent performing inspections & updating progress reports
100% transparency on status of all work across their projects
Saved manpower of 2 full-time roles per project
Muhammet Zeyrek"Sablono helps us to drastically reduce paperwork and efficiently tracks all essential information throughout the construction process. It also aids in monitoring open quality issues and enables the on-demand creation of Punchlist reports for specific scopes of work at any time."
Construction Manager, Q Energy
"If I had stuck with Excel alone, managing projects of this size, let alone simultaneously, would have been nearly impossible. Sablono offers an exceptionally high level of control, allowing me to monitor every aspect. For instance, I can instantly check the status of each individual trench in my project."
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