The team from Re-flow Field Management made their rail industry debut at the historic London Olympia, showcasing their award-winning field operations software for rail at Railtex / Infrarail.
In the days that followed, they talked to Rail Business Daily about the importance of meeting other businesses at major events.
Railtex marked Re-flow’s first official foray into the rail industry, a sector the company has been gearing up to expand into over the past several months. Much like highways, construction and other industries Re-flow serves, rail faces many of the same problems: businesses struggling to remain efficient and profitable amidst increasing supply chain and wage inflation, lack of reliable systems to protect lone workers and siloed systems causing bottlenecks between operational processes.
With the rapid growth they’ve experienced over the past year, it became clear that the business was in the ideal position to bring the same benefits they’ve been providing their clients in construction, highways, civil engineering and landscaping to the rail sector. Thanks to industry contacts, including Eli Rees-King, head of Rail Business Daily’s RBDCommunity, the team has been able to do just that, and they couldn’t be happier with the response they’ve received.
Eli said: “As the media partner to Railtex / Infrarail, we saw lots of businesses that are members of the RBD community, which has been fantastic.
“We’ve had lots of great conversations, with many of these companies taking great strides in the industry, just like Re-flow. Re-flow was part of our Eagle Lab – a specially dedicated part of Railtex / Infrarail run by Rail Business Daily that helps a business make the very most out of their debut at the exhibition.
“Working with Re-flow through Eagle Lab, we were able to get to know the guys there, their brilliant product, their business ethos and what they were trying to achieve.
“Because of our strong connections in the industry, we were able to help Re-flow and businesses just like them meet new connections they might otherwise not have been able to.”
Aside from making new contacts, the team also reconnected with some established ones. They had the opportunity to touch base with one of their oldest connections within the infrastructure industry: Andrew Dowding – founding director at Interchange. Re-flow first encountered Andrew during their early years at his show, Highways UK, trying to establish themselves in that industry. Years later, with over 80 clients in the sector, including heavyweights such as Highways Traffic Management and Premier Traffic Management, it’s become clear how instrumental connections, events and face-to-face contact are to bringing digital transformation to more business in more sectors than ever before.
Andrew said it was “really good to bump into Re-flow at Railtex, bringing their fantastic field service management software to the rail industry.
“I first met these guys in the highways sector, running a show called Highways UK, where they were a fledgling business with huge ambition and great talent. Since then, they’ve gone stratospheric, translating all that ambition and talent into a really successful, multi-modal asset management business. It’s really good to see, and I’m really proud of their team. I think we have an opportunity to carry on working together in the future through our integrated transport development.”
The team also ran into one of their long-term clients, Mike Andrews, director at DWG Infraco Ltd. As a specialist ground engineering company, their team has been utilising Re-flow in highways and civil engineering, also being the first clients to trial the system in a rail setting. Re-flow’s development is driven by the feedback from its users, so working with Mike and learning from his professional industry insights has been an invaluable asset, which has allowed the development team to build an increasingly robust piece of field management software for rail.
Mike Andrews, director at DWG Infraco said: “We got introduced to Re-flow about 18 months ago by another company that we were doing some sub-contract work with.
“We were all paper and manual, and it was a complete culture change for everybody. Now we’ve got Ansel, who’s our super user, and we live and breathe by the software.
“It does all our RAMS for all our projects; we do all our reporting, all our site documentation, toolbox talks, and daily recording of site activities. It’s made a phenomenal difference to what we do when it comes to ISO audits and record keeping, because everything’s at our fingertips. We don’t have to go scratching around in piles for bits of paper, so it’s making our life a lot easier. It’s been a great change.”
The connections made and feedback received has made the Re-flow team all the more excited for what the rail industry holds in the future. The good news is, they won’t have to wait long. In just over a month, on the 22 – 23 June, Re-flow will be attending Rail Live at the Long Marston Rail Innovation Centre.
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