Digitising site deliveries saves BW time, avoiding £50k of compliance costs

Digital Construction Plus Staff

1 April 2026

BW: Workplace Experts, the rapidly growing fit-out specialist, has adopted the Qflow platform to digitise its site deliveries. The results are impressive.

BW has digitised site deliveries with the Qflow platform. Image: Qflow

BW has grown substantially in the past 10 years, more than trebling its turnover to £325m. Such rapid expansion meant the team faced a critical operational challenge: manual processes for tracking deliveries and materials were creating a significant margin for error, consuming valuable time and limiting the company’s ability to scale without expanding headcount.

BW’s rapid growth highlighted the need for more accurate, scalable data management: manual processes that had served the company well were holding the team back as project numbers and complexity increased. As BW director of technology Tomas Hollingsworth explains: “There’s so much margin for error when you’re relying on multiple people retrospectively talking about hundreds of product deliveries in central London.”

The operational impact was multifaceted. Quality verification for key materials like FSC timber relied on trust rather than systematic checks. Delivery cost visibility was limited, making it difficult to identify opportunities for consolidation. Site teams lacked real-time data to monitor installation progress or prevent overcrowding in tight, central London environments. Skilled team members spent their time chasing data, rather than analysing it to identify cost savings and process improvements.

BW chose Qflow two years ago for its ability to replace manual verification with automated, real-time data capture that would improve accuracy, reduce costs and enable scalable growth.

The BW team led a comprehensive roll-out, which included a roadshow supported by Qflow to demonstrate the system’s simplicity to logistics managers on site. The focus on reducing the paperwork burden made deployment straightforward. BW emphasised real-time adoption from day one, with teams scanning delivery notes as they arrived for immediate data capture and live notifications.

The partnership also established an iterative feedback loop, enabling Qflow to refine usability based on real-world insights from the BW team.

The solution

Qflow’s mobile platform transformed BW’s operations from reactive to proactive, delivering improvements across quality, cost control and operational efficiency. BW made the most of Qflow’s functions:

single-scan verification – every delivery note is captured and verified with one photograph, replacing thousands of manual conversations and dramatically reducing margin for error;

real-time material alerts – material specifications, such as FSC timber certification are now verified on arrival, ensuring quality and preventing non-compliant materials from entering sites;

time-restricted delivery monitoring – the platform tracks deliveries against loading bay time restrictions, helping BW avoid financial penalties in central London;

long-term trend analysis – historical data identifies patterns, enabling BW to consolidate unnecessary deliveries and reduce both delivery costs and carbon impact.; and

automated compliance checks – the system verifies waste licensing against proper authorities, providing systematic tracking without manual effort.

Results that scale

The impact has been transformational. By digitising 14,579 tickets, BW now manages 37 major projects with the same team that previously handled 20, an 85% increase in capacity with no additional headcount. This achievement is even more impressive, given that project complexity increased significantly during this period.

“There’s so much margin for error when you’re relying on multiple people retrospectively talking about hundreds of product deliveries in central London. We’ve gone from having thousands of conversations that Qflow now does automatically with one scan of a delivery note.”

Tomas Hollingsworth

The margin for error has fallen dramatically. Real-time verification replaced trust-based processes with systematic checks, flagging issues as they happen, rather than weeks later. The team has reclaimed an estimated 30 days of time for strategic work, allowing them to focus on identifying cost savings and process improvements rather than spending time chasing spreadsheet data.

Visibility into delivery patterns has delivered unexpected financial benefits. BW can now identify suppliers making multiple daily or weekly deliveries, consolidating these to reduce delivery charges per project. The platform also helps avoid financial penalties by monitoring time-restricted loading bays in central London. Potential compliance costs of £46,083 have successfully been avoided.

The data serves the wider organisation beyond the original use case. Finance teams use it to manage supplier costs and reduce delivery charges. Quality teams get real-time material verification. Site teams can mitigate health and safety risks, while commercial teams can monitor installation progress to de-risk project timelines.

As an added benefit, the platform delivers strong sustainability credentials. Verified, real-time tracking provides demonstrable proof of environmental performance, achieving a 99.75% diversion from landfill rate and preventing 171,028t of material from ending up in landfill. This helps combat greenwashing concerns during tender processes.

BW views the delivery and materials data as a competitive advantage for project delivery and quality. The ability to demonstrate accuracy, reduce errors, save significant sums and manage complex projects efficiently all combine to strengthen its market position, while the verified and impressive sustainability savings provides an additional edge.

Hollingsworth concludes: “We’re not constantly paying that delivery charge any more, because Qflow replaced thousands of conversations with one scan of a delivery note. That is, in essence, the reason we looked at Qflow. We’ve gone from having thousands of conversations that Qflow now does automatically with one scan of a delivery note and can now see when suppliers are making multiple deliveries and consolidate them. That’s been a real step-change for us.”

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Topics:

BW: Workplace Experts Qflow

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