Re-flow review
How MJL brought consistency across 50 active sites
Location
Southwest
Industry
Civil engineering
Users
80
More than £50,000 saved
through time and resource efficiencies
42% reduction in service strikes
due to real-time permit visibility
1 – 2 hours saved per day
on audits, and more time for H&S teams
10 – 15 minutes saved per foreman, per day,
multiplied across every site
Zero RIDDOR events
in 18 months
Up to 1 hour saved
per site visit for H&S teams
The big thing is time efficiency equals cost savings – we’re saving more than £50,000 a year. MJL will continue to use Re-flow as we expand into new regions. It gives us a standardised approach.
Summary
MJL adopted Re‑flow to improve how site data was captured and bring operations into a single platform. Through this partnership MJL were able to standardise how work is completed across up to 50 sites – including required checks, photo evidence, and sign‑offs.
MJL also gained real-time visibility of site activity. This has enabled faster decision making. Identifying gaps in permits and checks now happens in real time. And rather than discovering issues days or weeks later once paperwork has been returned to the office, teams can intervene the same day.
This has made it easier to maintain consistent standards across every site.
MJL Group are a groundworks and infrastructure contractor operating in the South West, delivering residential and commercial projects across 40‑50 active sites. The business has grown steadily, with several hundred employees working across multiple regions.
With 500‑600 employees and turnover exceeding £100m, maintaining consistent standards across geographically spread sites had become increasingly complex.
The challenge: a need for modernised workflows to match growth
As MJL expanded, their manual processes began to hold the business back.
Too much time was lost completing checks, permits, and inspections. There were inconsistencies and gaps in visibility – and site visits were necessary to understand what was happening.
In some cases, it could take days or even weeks for missing paperwork or issues to surface – by which point work had already progressed.
There were other avoidable risks: without reliable records and photos taken at the point of work, any issue identified later required excavation to investigate, with costs that could escalate significantly depending on the situation.
The solution: raising the bar in operations management
With Re-flow, MJL gained the ability to capture checks, photos, and sign‑offs live on site. Information no longer had to be returned and processed later. The end‑to‑end nature of Re‑flow, and the industry‑focused toolset, helped develop a culture where site workers became accountable for their work.
Re‑flow also added the ability to sync checks, photo evidence capture, and forms with the way work actually flowed on site while standardising processes across the business.
The way we’ve set it up, a whole new team could start and they’ll produce the same product as someone who’s been doing it for the last 20 years. We’ve tailored everything so that everyone’s doing it the MJL way.
Key Re‑flow capabilities used:
Digital site forms and checklists
Photo capture, timestamps, and geolocation
Automated workflows and sign-offs
Real‑time reporting and dashboards
Centralised data across all sites
The results
1. Data captured as work happens
Re‑flow improved compliance by embedding documentation into the flow of work. Because forms cannot be submitted without required fields, photos, and sign‑offs, it’s no longer possible to skip steps or complete documentation later.
When tasks are documented with photos and named records, standards have improved too.
2. Real‑time visibility across every site
Information is now available instantly to managers, health and safety teams, and senior leadership. Daily checks, permits, and inspections can be reviewed as they’re completed. Any issues are addressed quickly.
3. Faster audits and stronger compliance
Audits are now quicker to prepare for and complete. Results are more consistent, with structured templates and real‑time records.
Our clients all have different requirements, and we can set up bespoke audit templates to meet them. On a daily basis, it’s 1 – 2 hours quicker. Rather than sitting doing a form, we can be on site. The efficiencies have been massive.
4. Better decision-making
With data captured consistently across sites, management can use KPIs to identify trends and make informed decisions on how to address them.
At a leadership level, this means board and senior management discussions are based on live data rather than historical reports.
We can ask questions to Re-flow reports and it will produce the answers we need to make an educated decision on where to progress and invest. We can target areas for training, quality, health and safety, or production.
Looking ahead
With consistent processes in place, MJL have raised the baseline for how work is completed across sites. They’ve made it easy to maintain their standards and workflows as they grow.
With real‑time data now embedded into daily operations, the business is better equipped to scale without losing control or visibility.
Looking ahead, planned work includes tracking waste and material movements more accurately in Re‑flow and improving forecasting by linking planned and actual performance.
In five years’ time it’ll be chalk and cheese – there won’t be any similarities between how we operate then and now.
Discover more about smarter field management with Re-flow
If you want to learn more about how civils and groundworks company, MJL, use Re-flow Field Management to raise operational standards, watch our recent webinar with MJL’s Luke Serpell.
Watch here