Streamlining Planning Report Workflows with Rico
Find out how Novo Group uses Rico to reduce low-value admin work and focus effort on high-value planning analysis.
Operating in Greater Christchurch Area (NZ)
~20 planners
Challenges Before Rico
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Growing team made it harder to keep assessments consistent and high-quality
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Staff referenced different past reports and manually adapted Word templates
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Risks of errors, oversights, and inconsistency across outputs
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Too much time on formatting and data entry instead of analysis
Word from the team
“It relied heavily on the individual in terms of what their approach was [...] That came with risks of errors, oversights or inconsistency.”
Jeremy Phillips
Director and Senior Planner
Results after Rico's implementation
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Moved from a patchwork of templates to a centralised, structured system
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Consistency and accuracy improved across teams; helpful for newer staff
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Uniform, professional formatting and presentation
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Less time on report setup, standardised data entry, and formatting
Word from the team
“It has inherently removed the time wastage associated with wrestling with different templates, and provided a database of examples. [...]"
"It’s honestly hard to remember how long things used to take with Word. I’d say Rico saves at least one hour per project on smaller jobs, and potentially significantly more on larger jobs with complex rules and provisions assessments”
Andrew Fitzgerald
Principal Planner
We now spend a far smaller proportion of total time on report setup, standardised data entry and formatting [...] That time can instead be spent on assessment, where it actually counts.”
Jeremy Phillips
Director and Senior Planner
Easy setup and onboarding for the team
“If you build your knowledge in increments, it’s fine. Anyone who uses Office software regularly should easily pick it up.”
Andrew Fitzgerald
Principal Planner
“After 4–5 projects I was reasonably confident.”
Jeremy Phillips
Director and Senior Planner
“The more you use it, the better it gets…”
Rhys Chesterman
Director and Traffic Engineer
Continuous improvement and support
“ Rico has grown a lot from when we first started, often in response to feedback from us and other users [...] I think someone coming to Rico now would hit the ground running with a lot of the improvements that have been made over the past ~2 years we’ve been using it.”
Andrew Fitzgerald
Principal Planner
"Hats off to the team at Rico who have been extremely responsive to questions and queries"
You're welcome Rhys ;) Much appreciated!
Rhys Chesterman
Director and Traffic Engineer
