We interviewed employees from Force Net Corp., in which responsible for telecommunication facilities such as the opening of telecommunication lines in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture. Force Net Corp. has been utilizing LINE WORKS when communicating with site workers, reporting work progress, and delivering announcement across the company. We interviewed the president Yasda Naohiro, manager Yasda Sayuri, and Construction department manager Suzuki Dakasi to listen further.

Emails and phone calls are inadequate for communication with the field in which prioritizes efficiency

At the construction site for line installation, we have various communication rules to follow. For example, we have to leave ‘arrival contact’ when first arrive at the construction field such as customer’s house, ‘depart contact’ when leaving the site after work has done, and ‘field research report’ when visiting the field before the actual construction. Before LINE WORKS integration, we mostly collaborated with the phone calls. Because the other collaborator is not always in a position to receive a call, it was inevitable to encounter delays in overall working due to the longer standby time at the site.

Also, if we were to report the condition of the communication equipment or wiring at the site, we had to take photos and send it to the office. During so, we had to go through burdensome process that took a lot of time, meaning that we had to open up our laptop and download the photos taken from the phone, and attach the photos to the email and send it. Efficient working is the most important especially when working at the customers house. However, the process refrained us from working proficiently.

Started to use LINE as a collaboration tool, but only for the limited occasion

We tried hard not to implement LINE to our office communication because LINE increases the chance of security issues including information leakage. However, it was inevitable to use LINE since sharing work-related information like photos through phone calls, smartphone email, and SMS was not comfortable enough for our collaboration. When first integrating, we created a company group and share information there. While doing so, we made a rule not to mention or handle confidential issues. As a result, we still had to use phone calls or emails even if we utilize LINE anyways.

Standby time at the construction field has decreased dramatically

One of our clients, who ordered the construction to us recently, recommended LINE WORKS to us. Not long after, we integrated LINE WORKS. Because efficient operation in the field is the most important factor, we are feeling the change most in terms of ‘standby time at the field reduced dramatically’. Prior to introducing LINE WORKS, field employees had to wait for response if the collaborators at the office did not realize whether they receive the call or email. It was because the contact was often made via phone or email. For this reason, after receiving the LINE message like “I sent the email”, we proceeded to check the email with the computer.

If we use LINE WORKS chatting instead, we can contact our collaborators regardless of the situation. Also, we will be informed through our smartphone or the computer if using LINE WORKS, which helps us to make response in real time. With less time waiting in the field, we can focus more on what we really need to do; that means, we can work harder without wasting our time.

With LINE WORKS ‘Read notification’ feature, we can quickly and efficiently share the information sent by the original company

“LINE WORKS is the best collaboration tool. Among provided features, ‘Read notification’ is my favorite of all. At the moment when the ‘Read’ function is working is the time when an accident occurs and an announcement from the company is sent to the workers. When the company sends an e-mail to each employee, it was obliged to send the confirmation message within the deadline. “The moment when the ‘Read’ function came through is when an accident occurs and the ordering company send out the announcement. When the original company sends an e-mail to each worker, it is obliged for all the employees to report that they have checked the announcement within the specified time frame. With this, the company can check whether the announcement is thoroughly notified to all workers.”

“When we receive an announcement related to the accident, we used to forward the accident-related messages to the LINE group chatting feature. Even though LINE can check the total number of readers, it does not provide any further information about the read and unread members. In the end, we had to contact each person who had no answer. This, of course, took a lot of time, and it was cumbersome”.

With LINE WORKS, we can not only check the number of the readers, but also check unread members at the chatting room. After LINE WORKS integration, we have created a group chatting room called ‘Chatting room for announcements’, and deliver the entire notification at once. By allowing us to select only those members who have not yet read the message, LINE WORKS made it possible to contact the targeted employee only, which saves us the troubles of message transferring information, and also enables us to deliver the message safely and speedily.

We can simply take photos of labels with the wiring number and send it to the message room! Both processing time and mistake have reduced!

In addition to this, Force Net is said to use LINE WORKS in a special way. For example, during the opening line process, a tag or label should be attached to the device or cable with the line number. The line number is very important because it is information used for identifying the problem and its cause within the line. In the past, it was verbally checked through the phone calls. But, verbal checking might take time and sometimes, it could be misleading. To solve such issues, we started to take photo of the label attached to the line and send it via LINE WORKS chat room to make sure the issue to be visually confirmed. As a result, both processing time and mistakes could be reduced.

With the LINE WORKS introduction, Force Net has been able to realize efficiency and enjoy the high working process speed at the field, where both efficiency and safety are required. In the future, we hope to have a feature which makes us to write the field investigation report easier.

※ All details, affiliations, and positions specified were gathered at the time of interview.