Tesla Energy provide batteries and solar systems across Australia, utilising subcontractors to complete the installation field work. Prior to Emvisage Tesla were using a mix of Salesforce CRM, multiple spreadsheet trackers, email and fillable PDFs to coordinate their work. But volume increases on the horizon prompted the company to look for a more streamlined approach, that would allow them to scale without increasing operations headcount.

Tesla has used Emvisage to automate their workflow, improve the quality of field work and reduce back office admin, resulting in terrific productivity gains. The company has seen a 91% reduction in job allocation and tracking time, a 67% reduction in QA (Quality Assurance) time, 30mins per job saved in post installation documentation, due largely, to automation and improved flow of information between Tesla and their subcontractor field teams.

Automating complex workflow with Emvisage

Tesla no longer need the spreadsheets, they no longer need to remember when to send emails to colleagues and customers, to consume so much resource on QA, or loose valuable hours to ‘copy and paste’. Emvisage has automated a large portion of this manual work.

It’s unusual that one system can automate so much, especially given the complex workflow between multiple internal Tesla teams and external subcontractors. It’s possible only because of the extreme flexibility and deep customisation that is central to Emvisage. Our low code technology meant the system was quickly tailored to Tesla’s exact workflow, capturing all the data required through the process and centralising it. This is what made automation feasible, even when the work seemed destined to always require manual effort. 

Prior to Emvisage, 115 pieces of field and customer data needed to be copy and pasted from spreadsheets and PDF’s, into the Tesla Welcome Pack. Lots of different information from different places, including job photos and field technician details. With Emvisage this has been completely automated. The 115 pieces of data are populated into the Tesla Welcome Pack template, a PDF generated and attached to a Tesla branded email, along with the ‘Certificate of Compliance’. The customer gets the email from Tesla with a perfect Welcome Pack, Tesla’s compliance needs are met and no one in the operations team needs to lift a finger. Automating this one activity has saved 30minutes on every job.

Outstanding quality, with less overhead

To ensure subcontractor installation work of the utmost quality, Tesla used comprehensive fillable PDF’s, with sufficient detail to cover a range of possible field scenarios. Each job was then reviewed extensively, to ensure quality and compliant work. The QA process took considerable resource, both in terms of checking work and dealing with calls from field technicians. Emvisage’s deeply customised forms with in-built smarts have made it much easier for field technicians to get it right, first time. The system is doing the ‘reminding and checking’ live, while technicians are on site updating Emvisage on their mobile phones. The Tesla team’s knowledge is embedded into the forms, stopping those common ‘misses’ and providing timely reminders about a standard or requirements. We call it ‘Quality Automation’ and it’s reduced QA review time at Tesla by 67%.

‘Before we would spend so much time reviewing the design. Now it’s so ingrained into the forms. They are no longer just fields or forms, they are guides. It allows us to communicate to installers without actually talking to them. Actually guiding the installers, have you done this? What about this? They don’t really call us anymore, there is no need.’

Big results from automation

Quote automation has also proven to be a win for both Tesla and their subcontractors. Rather than using spreadsheets to manage the different pricing for each subcontractor, subcontractor ratecards are embedded in Emvisage. Automation here saves time on both sides, it’s quicker for subcontractors to prepare quotes, while automating calculations takes manual errors out of the picture.

Overall Tesla have been extremely satisfied with Emvisage. The ability to scale effectively has yielded some awesome results, saving the operations team more than 12 hours of admin work a day. Job allocation and tracking time has been reduced by 91%, from hours a day to 10 minutes. QA time is down by 67% and 30 minutes is being saved on every job through automating post installation documents. 

With clear visibility in Emvisage, Tesla are driving subcontractor performance and lifting the bar ever higher in terms of quality and the experience for customers. 

‘The single most important thing that Emvisage provides us is live visibility. We can not just do it quicker, but we have far more visibility. We can manage proactively and have much better control.’

Emvisage - powerful for complex field workflow 

If you need to streamline your time consuming field and back office workflow,  but it feels impossible or not feasible. It’s worth getting in touch, our technology can be a game changer. This is a brief overview of Tesla’s story, but you can get the full Tesla whitepaper here.