How Iskandar Malaysia’s first District Cooling Plant operator replaced scattered, email-based document sharing with a single, centralised system.
About Jana DCS
Jana DCS Sdn Bhd operates Iskandar Malaysia’s first District Cooling Plant, equipped with Thermal Energy Storage capability, producing and supplying cooling load for air-conditioning to the Johor State Government complex at Kota Iskandar and to private-sector developments at Puteri Harbour. The company has run on desknet’s NEO since 2019, with 30 users across its operations.
The Challenge: Scattered Documents, Siloed Branches
Before adopting desknet’s NEO, Jana DCS’s most persistent operational issue was document management. With multiple branches in operation, documents were shared mainly through email rather than through any centralised system, making it time-consuming for staff to locate files whenever they were needed. The company was also facing difficulty coordinating communication between staff based at different branches, and relied heavily on paper-based processes for its day-to-day administrative work.
Considering an In-House Build — Then Finding desknet’s NEO
Jana DCS’s first instinct was to develop its own in-house system to address these issues. That plan was shelved once the company discovered desknet’s NEO. As Mr. Safuan, IT Officer at Jana DCS, put it: the company decided to cancel its in-house build “after we found desknet’s NEO” — timing he describes as fortunate for the business.
Why desknet’s NEO
Cost was the deciding factor for Jana DCS — desknet’s NEO’s pricing compared favourably against the cost of building and maintaining an in-house system from scratch. The platform’s search feature was a close second: with all of Jana DCS’s applications integrated into a single system, staff can search across every application at once, with fast results. That same integration let the company centralise its operations without stitching together a patchwork of separate tools.
Features in Daily Use
Workflow and Circulation/Report are the two features Jana DCS relies on most day to day, alongside Document Management and Schedule for centralising records and coordinating staff across branches:
- Workflow — digitalises Jana DCS’s core internal applications, including expense claims, leave requests, and purchasing requests, processed and tracked online instead of on paper.
- Circulation/Report — manages daily reports submitted from Jana DCS’s construction sites, keeping site-level reporting consistent and easy to trace.
- Document Management — centralises storage for the files and data staff share most frequently, replacing the company’s previous reliance on email.
- Schedule — manages the calendars of staff across every branch, giving the company visibility into staff whereabouts at any given time.
The Results
desknet’s NEO centralised Jana DCS’s operations — from communication to collaboration — onto a single platform, removing the friction of coordinating multiple branches and offices on separate systems. The benefits, Mr. Safuan notes, extend well beyond management to the wider team.
“No more hurdle in managing multiple branches and offices since everyone is using the same system. The benefits can be felt for not only the management, but also for the staff. Everyone seems happy with the current system.”
