NRGsurf

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with NRGsurf?

We hired them to program a survey and intervention platform for one of our research projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

NRGsurf provides us with custom software development. They've built a survey platform using some existing services. First, we provided a detailed specification of what we wanted on the platform. Our requirements included randomization, criteria, and automatic reminders for users to report electricity use. We also included the different interventions and the standards we had on our property. 

From there, we had a dialogue with NRGsurf about how the platform would look and what it needed to do. They've built a tool where users can report their energy consumption six weeks in a row and answer questions about their living situation and psychological predictors of electricity use. 

After those six weeks, the platform randomly assigns users to different conditions within your research, where they get different kinds of interventions. Users might get feedback about how much electricity others in their group are using, how electricity use has changed up to the previous week, or a commitment to reduce energy consumption. The tool also provides subjects with tips and tricks to conserve energy. 

We've done extensive testing on the platform, and we're about to launch it into our data collection. NRGsurf will provide us with technical support. 

What is the team composition?

We work with NRGsurf's owner and a programmer. 

How did you come to work with NRGsurf?

Ours is a European research project with many different partners. One of our partners had worked with NRGsurf before and had been happy with the process and the results. We launched a tender for the job and asked three different companies to give us a quote; NRGsurf was one of them due to the reference we had. In the end, they won the tender. 

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent about €85,000 (approximately $84,000 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started negotiations around November 2021, officially signed a contract in January 2022, and the engagement is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

The platform functions as intended and meets our expectations. Since the tool isn't in the field yet, we don't have any responses to the platform; we'll have metrics in the next couple of months. NRGsurf has been very good at understanding our scientific needs and requirements, so it's been a fruitful and positive experience.

How did NRGsurf perform from a project management standpoint?

They're extremely responsive, so we've had a lot of good discussions about the platform. The team is great at communicating and delivering on time and within our budget. As for tools, we recently started using ClickUp, where I can define tasks for them to complete and prioritize them. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I've worked with survey companies before, and they often have issues understanding the specific needs of scientific research. This hasn't been the case with NRGsurf, which might be because they have roots in academia. I've been very pleased with how well they understand what we want and why different aspects are important to us. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't think they need to improve anything; working with them has been a very positive experience.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Financial Controller of a private international school in Germany and supported my colleagues from the Transportation department in this project.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire NRGsurf, and what were your goals?

The school is offering an optional door-to-door school bus transportation service for 2 campuses. Due to high turnover in students and a rather large area where families choose to live, the bus routes change significantly from school year to school year. Students can also join the school and the school bus transportation during the year. with rather short notice, an available seat for new students must be found in the most convenient bus route or without changing too many routes at once. This planning was previously done manually on a poster-sized map where colored pin's indicated students and bus routes.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

NRGsurf approached us when the founders child (enrolled at our school) started using the school bus and realized the special tasks our transportation office was dealing with. The solution suggested based on an initial conversation to find out our needs was already useful. The quick response-times and overall support lead to an easy decision to work together with NRGsurf.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

NRGsurf immediately understood the manual labor that previously went into the route planning after an initial conversation with the transportation office of the school. They developed a web-based application where we can bulk-upload the student's home addresses. Google maps integration transforms the address into pick-up points and displays each student on a map (or each family with a number indicating how many children will enter the bus).

By selecting the regular bus size, the software suggests the best groups and routes. The software then allows for the following manual changes - if wished: pick-up oder can be adjusted, routes can be renamed, bus sizes changed, students can be moved to a different bus, late starting students can be added manually, students not added to a route are highlighted on the map. A first trial version was available soon including a detailed user-handbook. Requests for changes were implemented quickly.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

There was one main contact person (founder/CEO of NRGsurf) we had been in direct contact with. The software developer participated in meetings.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

After first meeting in November 2020, we were already able to use the solution for the bus route planning of summer 2021. We were able to optimize routes, leading to lower costs. Our further "nice-to-have" requests we encountered while using the solution where build in after and we are looking forward to using the improved solution for the next big route planning in the coming weeks.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

The project managing was very well organized, including maintaining and working off a backlog when some of our "nice-to-have" requests took some more time to be implemented. With every update we received an updated user guideline / handbook. Communication tools included email and personal conversations via meetings or phone calls.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

NRGsurf proactively approached us when realizing how they can help us. Many suggestions for improvements came from them and all of our further request were implemented. They anticipated that our transport department is not tech-savvy, where they provided easy to follow user guidelines.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

not at all.