Large Property Development Corporation Relying on Nocode to Automate its workflows

As a leading urban investment and development operator in the industry, Capital Land undertakes numerous real estate development and operation projects. However, similar to many peers, the company faced challenges with information loss and the inability to pass on project experiences in project management. In a bid to comprehensively address this issue, Richard, from Capital Land, introduced Anffy's NoCode APaaS (Application Platform as a Service), constructing digital solutions for various architectural projects. By replacing experience-driven approaches with data-driven ones, this initiative aims to ensure a consistent enhancement in project quality. Presently, this strategy has shown outstanding practical results in hospital engineering, notably improving internal collaboration efficiency within the engineering team.

Issues and Challenges Capital Land, a leading urban investment and development operator, undertakes a substantial number of real estate development and operation projects. In the Central-South region alone, there are over a hundred construction projects managed by China Resources, encompassing various sectors such as hospitals, schools, parks, cultural facilities, and municipal projects.

Yet, even top-tier companies in the real estate sector encounter issues with information loss and the inability to transfer project experiences effectively. "We've set many rules, proposed excellent ideas, but when it comes to execution, we find that they disappear; we can't carry them out. This characteristic might be common across industries, but it might be more pronounced in our industry," mentioned Liu Kemin, an engineer at Capital Land.

Firstly, significant differences exist among projects across different sectors, leading to diverse implementation strategies. The more diversified and comprehensive the projects undertaken, the more challenging it is to streamline project execution experiences into commonalities and unified standards.

Secondly, the management of real estate projects becomes increasingly challenging due to multiple involved parties. A typical development project involves at least five to six responsible entities, including construction units, surveying units, design units, construction units, supervisory units, along with various tertiary units including cost, goods, labor, and government departments.

Furthermore, due to geological conditions, design variations, and client demands, each project possesses customized characteristics, making it challenging to establish unified execution standards. Consequently, many mature architectural project management software applications are unsuitable for all real estate projects.

Lastly, projects heavily rely on paper documents and Excel for daily management. The majority of construction professionals have lower educational backgrounds, possessing weaker learning abilities for new technologies, thus resorting to more primitive means for management.

Recognizing these issues, Richard explored various methods for resolution. While other industries like e-commerce, manufacturing, and retail have undergone digital transformation leveraging data-driven business changes, engineering management could potentially shift from experience-driven to data-driven, converting personal experiences into machine intelligence to ensure a stable enhancement in project quality.

Leveraging accumulated software and management expertise from past work, Richard began exploring various collaboration tools. A turning point emerged in October 2021 when Richard stumbled upon the concept of NoCode tools and meticulously examined four mainstream NoCode APaaS tools domestically, believing that NoCode might be the breakthrough to achieving digital engineering management. Ultimately, Richard chose Anffy.

Hospital Construction Engineering Solutions With a suitable tool in hand, Richard used the projects at Nanshan Hospital and Futian Kindergarten Hospital as experimental grounds to devise digital management solutions for hospital-type construction projects.

Comprehensive Execution of Institutional Needs for Seamless Closed-Loop Operations

Hospitals, as vast entities, elicit varying opinions and demands for engineering from different departments. Therefore, Capital Land ensured prior confirmation of requirements with the hospital before commencing construction. Details such as specific departmental needs, emergency power supply placement, patient flow to prevent congestion, among others, needed meticulous confirmation. Moreover, responsible personnel had to translate medical language into engineering language for accurate task execution by everyone involved.

Richard categorized departmental information, hospital demands, and execution records into corresponding worksheets within Anffy. Using functionalities like linked records and hierarchical views, he ensured the mapping of needs to every room and construction task. This allowed both the project team and the hospital to track each requirement's entire journey from decision-making, directives, changes, assignments, executions, to completion. In cases of misunderstood demands, the hospital could intervene promptly, mitigating risks.

Post-completion of primary construction, medical equipment procurement and entry became a gradual process. Often, hospital equipment is procured and raised in stages, leading to multiple rounds of communication within the project team to schedule equipment provision.

Richard created a clear equipment database using Anffy: detailing the location of each piece of equipment, whether it's a new purchase or a relocation, its procurement status, and whether the room is furnished or delivered bare. All details were easily accessible, and the hospital's procurement and the project's construction information were seamlessly connected. For a prolonged period, Nanshan Hospital relied on Anffy to view equipment data, as they weren't entirely clear about the equipment procurement details themselves.

Before construction, Capital Land shares baseline drawings with all involved parties for confirmation. However, during construction, engineers might request drawing changes based on actual circumstances. Each change requires scrutiny by specialized mechanical, electrical, and hydraulic companies before forwarding the feedback to internal China Resources for approval, finally reaching the design institute.

Given the multistep and multistakeholder nature of change reviews, the process tends to be lengthy, and relying on communication via emails fails to provide visibility into progress. To resolve this, Richard constructed a change management module within Anffy, involving the reviewing company in the approval process to provide transparency. Additionally, leveraging Anffy's related and embedded field features, Richard interconnected different specialized construction drawings, facilitating communication and collaboration between workers from different specialties during cross-construction.

In addition to demand management, equipment management, and change management, Capital Land utilized Anffy to address numerous marginalized IT needs in their daily operations. Tasks such as numerous paper documentations and difficulty in tracking responses were streamlined by Anffy's ability to facilitate online transmission and track response statuses. Materials like construction contact sheets, plan proposals, and daily logs, previously piling up on desks, were all migrated to Anffy for online collaboration. Furthermore, Anffy facilitated daily registration of nucleic acid testing on construction sites and management of party dues.

"Our desks used to be filled with paper materials, but within a month of Anffy's introduction, they disappeared because all paper documents transitioned online. This was a significant change," remarked Richard. He added, "NoCode offers three advantages for engineering project management: revealing previously unseen details, managing areas previously unmanaged, and retaining experiences previously unrecorded."

Empowering Frontline Personnel to Become Business Technology Experts Initially led by Richard, the effort to build applications involved frontline personnel gradually. "Regardless of your skill level or prior exposure to IT, even if you've never dealt with it before, you can grasp this knowledge and create successful solutions," Richard conveyed to frontline staff.

Subsequently, they collectively engaged in self-learning process management courses, gradually comprehending standard business processes. They delved into various materials to understand RPIC, CURD, and the three major paradigms of databases, laying a foundation in IT. Ultimately, even these vocational college students, who usually struggled in exams, obtained certificates upon completing NoCode training camps.

While individuals with lower educational backgrounds might have lower starting points in their careers, through accumulating business experience and leveraging tools to share their experiences, they empower both themselves and others, gaining more career achievements and opportunities. Underestimating anyone's potential is unwarranted; frontline business personnel also harbor the potential to become business technology experts.