How a global supplier uses Timeular to optimize processes and remain profitable

Nadiya Eichberg is Head of Battery Testing at Kiwa, an independent and impartial global supplier of Testing, Inspection and Certification (TIC) services in a wide variety of international markets. Nadiya and her team test and certify mainly lithium ion batteries, and also conduct environmental testing on different components.

The challenge: relying on project estimations to remain profitable

Before implementing Timeular, the teams at Kiwa were not tracking time and so only had rough estimations of how long each project they were working on was taking in total.

In order to ensure that they were charging the right amount for projects in line with the amount of work being put in, the management team realized that they needed to find a tool that would allow them to easily track their time and get accurate data to understand this.

The solution: using Timeular to quickly understand how to remain profitable and improve processes

One team within Kiwa introduced Timeular to their team and, based on their success and satisfaction, Timeular was then rolled out across all the teams at Kiwa Primara organization.

“Timeular is simple and really easy to use, so the teams took to it very quickly. It makes it really easy for us to see where we can optimize our time and processes.”

The Kiwa teams started tracking their time to see how the prices they were charging for projects compared with what they had planned for and what they expected in terms of the amount of work.

The projects are separated, and the implementation of folder systems is different across each department. Each folder has its own set of activities. Nadiya’s team uses the activities for each project they are working on, so it’s quick and easy for them to record their time. Some teams also use #hashtags and @mentions within their folders to specify the task they are doing for each project, like ‘testing’ or ‘project documentation.’

Nadiya and her team use context tracking to fill out their timesheets based on how long they spent within apps and websites. This is particularly useful when they have forgotten to track their time. This is just one of Timeular’s automatic time tracking features.

When a project takes longer than anticipated, Nadiya can look at the Timeular data and identify why it’s taking longer and whether they need to adjust the pricing.

Nadiya compares the project with a fixed price project that has already been ordered. There she can see that the price anticipated 40 hours of work, but the project ended up taking 60 hours in total.

By comparing with another project with the same conditions, the team can then adjust the pricing accordingly. This enables Kiwa to stay profitable and highlights where optimisation is required.

When a project is taking too long, Nadiya uses Timeular to identify which tasks are taking too long and can decide how to save this time by reviewing their processes and making improvements. “Thanks to Timeular, we can make each hour more efficient.”

Nadiya looks at the data in Timeular every month and sends the reports to management. She loves the insights tab and says that “the overview provided is really powerful and very visual, which helps us quickly find the information we are looking for.”

The result: streamlining optimisation

Nadiya and her team are really happy with Timeular as it’s “very quick and easy to use,” and now they know how much time they have spent in hours on each project, rather than just estimations in weeks like before.

Now they are able to stay on top of exactly how long a project is taking in real time, allowing them to take necessary steps to optimize processes and stay profitable.

Nadiya and her team are looking forward to using more of the automation features going forward as they look to further optimize their processes.