Our series of customer interviews continues: this time, Patrice Cron from Jean Cron AG gives us an insight into planning with Vanillaplan in timber construction and masonry.
Mr Cron, to start, please tell us a little about Jean Cron AG.
Our company was founded in 1936 and today employs around 70 people. We have two main departments: masonry and timber construction – in other words, bricklaying and carpentry work. We work exclusively in building construction, with a focus on renovations and conversions.
What is your position, and what are your responsibilities in the company?
I am the managing director and owner of Jean Cron AG. In the masonry department, I help with quotes during the tendering phase, among other things, and also work together with the timber construction team. On top of that come the overarching tasks such as advertising, marketing and staff management.
How long have you been working with Vanillaplan?
We have been using Vanillaplan since 2020.
How did you organise your planning before introducing Vanillaplan?
We worked with Excel, using three different spreadsheets: one for the actual weekly planning, one for fairly rudimentary capacity planning and a holiday list. The big advantage of Vanillaplan is that it brings all three areas together in one tool. The views are linked to each other, so you don't have to keep jumping back and forth between different lists.
What prompted the switch to Vanillaplan?
There wasn't a specific reason. We came across Vanillaplan and quickly found the solution very interesting – because by comparison, our planning in Excel was much more cumbersome.
How did the introduction and getting started with Vanillaplan go?
We introduced Vanillaplan fairly quickly, so there was no long transition period. Beforehand, we tried things out a bit in the demo version – but it was very intuitive to use, so an extensive test phase wasn't necessary. Of course, there were a few adjustments and questions afterwards, but overall getting started was very straightforward. That's also the beauty of Vanillaplan: it's simple and clear to use.
Let's move on to how you use Vanillaplan today: how many projects are you currently planning in Vanillaplan?
Currently around 100 – in total, we handle some 360 jobs a year. We have larger construction sites that run for several months, but our customer business is very fine-grained. For a small job, however, we don't create a separate project in Vanillaplan every time.
How do you handle the smaller jobs in your planning?
Each site manager has what we call small sites. We schedule employees on these and add the details as a note – for example, that someone is booked for half a day of exploratory investigation work at a particular location.
On average, how much time do your site managers spend planning in Vanillaplan?
We have twelve site managers in the office. For each of them it's about half an hour to an hour a day, so around four hours a week.
Does Vanillaplan save you time compared with planning in Excel?
Yes, definitely. If only because we used to have to keep three lists in parallel and reconcile them – now that happens automatically. If, for example, I mark an employee as absent in the absence planner, that absence is also taken into account in the resource planning. Linking the plans is our biggest time saver.
How do you use capacity planning?
With Excel it was difficult. But in Vanillaplan, too, our capacity planning remains fairly rudimentary. From our cost calculation, we know roughly how many hours or person-days we need for a site. From that, we work out how many people we need to schedule and for how long – for example, two people for four weeks. We mainly use capacity planning to look ahead in the medium and long term: can we still take on another site in the summer, or are we already at full capacity?
What is the greatest added value of Vanillaplan for you personally?
The link between capacity planning, the weekly schedule and the absence list – and the fact that it's all presented in a very simple, playful way. What sets Vanillaplan apart for us is that it's clear and uncomplicated – and it simply works.
What has your experience been with service and support?
Also very straightforward. We can always reach someone, and Remi Stalder responds immediately to our requests.
Thank you very much for the interview!
