Case Study

Modernising a health and safety application for scalability and operational efficiency

Codurance worked with HR and Health & Safety professional services company, Peninsula to provide the specialist knowledge required to digitalise its paper-based system into a modern application.

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Peninsula

Challenge

Appointing a trusted partner to scale and modernise its Health & Safety platform

Since 1983 Peninsula Group has been providing HR and Health & Safety professional services to businesses of all sizes, from multinationals to microbusinesses. In 2015 they launched its digital offering BrightHR, a library of online tools to build and share rotas, approve holidays, monitor attendance and manage staff expenses from a computer or mobile app. Initial success in driving engagement through digitisation resulted in building a digital offering to enhance the Health & Safety provision. 

Managed initially in a paper-based system, Peninsula made a strategic decision to deliver a new application for consultants on health & safety visits. The new iPad based tool would remove the need for paperwork and improve operational efficiencies by freeing up the time consultants spent creating reports. 
The work had already begun to build the platform, and they had been experiencing challenges with growing concerns around budget and timelines to complete the project. Peninsula needed a partner they could trust to meet deadlines and deliver value early.

 

 

 

 

Project

Building and re-architecting the platform

 

The intended outcome of this project was to deliver a tool that captures the required Health & Safety audit information, gives the user improved functionality to record all required observation data, whilst increasing operational efficiency and allowing consultants the ability to work in the field in an effective and timely manner. 

 

We began with an initial discovery to fully understand the problem and work that had already started on the application, align with the Peninsula organisation, explore solutions, and create a prioritised list of high-level features and estimates. 

It was important for Peninsula to work with a partner that could hold credibility in the work they could achieve, especially in the scoping phase. We provided detailed estimates to build confidence that we could build the product within the timeframe and with quality in mind. 

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Platform Engineering

Platform Engineering

As the existing codebase structure limited the number of engineers who could work in parallel, Codurance advised on architecture changes to the application that allowed more people to work on the code, resulting in increased delivery velocity without increasing the overall spend. We re-architected the front-end, converting it to a modular monolith which allowed pairs to work on modules independently.

Feature Delivery

Feature Delivery

Codurance provided a cross-functional team of software craftspeople to build the software with the initial aim of completing the Consultant's Handbook feature, a significant feature build that would validate the ROI and development approach to the rest of the platform. The team consisted of a Principal Craftsperson, three Craftspeople and a Delivery Manager. This team covered all the required skills in .NET, Flutter and project governance required to complete the work.

Training

Training

We worked with Peninsula's in-house Product and Health & Safety technical teams who would have responsibility for the system, to share and transfer our methodology and agile best practices, such as daily standups, pairing, mob programming, DevOps, CI/CD and remote working. This ensured that we not only delivered the product on time but also instilled modern practices and new technology skills as part of the engagement.

Outcome

A modern and scalable platform with the capability to increase productivity 

 

Over 9 months, Codurance modernised the Health & Safety application into a reliable platform allowing Peninsula to scale and service its clients effectively. We focused our efforts to develop working prototypes of the initial build to increase stakeholder confidence. This led to us delivering to schedule, with the initial phase being delivered four weeks earlier than projected and 25% under budget.

Delivered initial phase 4 weeks earlier than planned

Initial phase was 25% under budget

The new platform saves one consultancy day per week which increases productivity by 20%

The new platform allows the consultants to bill for an extra day and increases productivity by 20%. We also considered the scalability of the platform and built the capacity for it to extend and create different types of reports. The governance and reporting process implemented by Codurance is now used as an example to other software suppliers of industry best practice.